Revolutionizing How People Get & Stay Mentally Healthy
The mission of the Department of Psychiatry is to transform mental health care and illness prevention in Central Texas and beyond in a culture that supports diversity and inclusion. Working with a wide array of community partners, the team develops clinical, educational and research initiatives that make real differences in people’s lives.
Focus Areas
With partners in the community like Seton Healthcare Family, Integral Care, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, the National Alliance on Mental Illness Austin and Mental Health Texas, the department is working to build scalable models of care that meet the needs of Central Texans. The collaborative care team, an innovative clinical model being deployed at UT Health Austin, is an example of the type of work the department is doing to offer person-centered mental health care.
The department also partners with the Steve Hicks School of Social Work to facilitate the Institute for Military and Veteran Family Wellness. The institute addresses the unique needs faced by this population through research, training, graduate education and community collaboration.
Research in the Department of Psychiatry is organized into areas that link and integrate individual research endeavors across institutional boundaries within the department, facilitating innovative research collaboration and career development of trainees and junior faculty with shared interests. Focus areas include mood disorders, stress, addiction and health system design.
Education is a critical element to the mission of the Department of Psychiatry. Educating, training and inspiring a diverse workforce of physicians and scientists through excellence in medical education is one of the department’s highest priorities. The team works to train the next generation to disseminate innovative care models as widely as possible.
The department also plays a key role in reimagining the entire continuum of care for brain health as part of the Austin State Hospital redesign. In partnership with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, Dell Medical School is leading the redesign and Department Chair Stephen Strakwoski, M.D., serves as the project’s steering committee chair.
The Department of Psychiatry collaborates with the Mulva Clinic for the Neurosciences and is home to the the Center for Youth Mental Health. It is also home to the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Consultation Liaison Psychiatry fellowships and the Psychiatry Residency.