Child Fellowship

The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training Program of the University of Missouri- Columbia has been in continuous operation since 1967. As a fully accredited two-year program, we graduate up to three child and adolescent psychiatrists each year. The number of fellows has been limited to a program complement of six in order to provide personalized supervision and to facilitate an atmosphere in which each fellow is considered a respected contributor.

A Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist must have a thorough understanding of the development and prevention of psychopathology as it appears from infancy through adulthood. He or she should also have the skills to serve as an effective consultant to primary care physicians, community agencies and institutions serving children and adolescents. To this end, the program has always emphasized individual instruction and supervision and has maintained a cohesive approach in which faculty and fellows share clinical responsibilities and learn from the exchange of ideas.

The diagnostic and treatment approach to patients follows the integrated psycho-social-biological philosophy that views mental illness as a multi-etiological problem that can benefit from a spectrum of treatments. Our faculty members form an eclectic group representing psychiatry, psychology and social services.

The goal of the child psychiatry training program is to produce competent and caring physicians who feel comfortable whether in a clinical office, with families, in juvenile courts, addressing a professional group, writing ideas, or working with an inpatient team. Fellows will grow in their knowledge of pharmacotherapy, dynamic psychotherapy, family therapy, and behavioral management approaches. They will also learn to critically evaluate journal articles and to formulate their own research ideas and methods. Knowledge of record keeping, time utilization, and quality assurance is stressed to promote skills which are needed in today's professional market.

An integral part of the child psychiatry program in the didactic program it provides. Fellows devote one day a week to attend child seminars, case conferences, book reviews, parenting seminars and grand rounds.

Fellows in the child psychiatry program spend a year rotating in the inpatient child/adolescent psychiatry units of Mid Missouri Mental Health Center and Royal Oaks Hospital. The second year of the fellowship is spent in the outpatient child/adolescent psychiatry clinical setting. Fellows see patients in the general child/adolescent psychiatry clinic, the ADHD clinic, the Autism Clinic and also see children and adolescents with forensic psychiatry needs.

Interested applicants should submit a universal application, curriculum vita, three letters of recommendation (written in the last 12 months) and a personal statement to:

Barbara Morris,
Residency Program Coordinator
MPC 329
1 Hospital Drive
Columbia , MO 65212
(573) 882-8907
Fax (573) 884-5396
E-mail: MorrisB@health.missouri.edu