FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT PSYCHIATRY CHAIRMAN & RESIDENCY TRAINING DIRECTOR

Greetings from Dr. Leighton Huey, Birnbaum/Blum Professor, Chairman & Residency Training Director, Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine

With nine years of reorganization and house cleaning in all areas of the Department now complete, we have the fundamental template in place to be what a contemporary academic department of psychiatry should be in the 21st Century. While measured change continues here as it should in any quality organization as part of the continuous improvement effort, the basic framework for training, clinical delivery, research, and community outreach -all of which are inextricably linked- are in place and part of the collective vision of this department.

Having a collective vision provides a platform for stability, and I think our faculty take pride in viewing itself as part of a department dedicated not only to reshaping itself but also committed to reform to improve health care through a variety of means. Of all the areas of Medicine, Psychiatry, for many complex reasons, perhaps has been the most resistant to change. As a contemporary department, we think it essential that we question and challenge the status quo, and that the major advances in our field be introduced and incorporated at all levels into what we do, how we conceptualize ourselves, how we work at the reshaping process, and how we impart these values to our trainees, our clinical systems, and our research efforts.

This Department will not be for everyone, whether prospective faculty member (and we have added a number of new faculty at the Assistant Professor or higher level over the past nine years) or trainee applicant. We are committed to the Public Sector and its improvement, to the development of Clinician Scientists who are clinically adept and culturally sensitive, to serving as a resource to City, State, and Federal systems, to helping those most in need, to providing a level of care with continuity representing the state-of-the-art, to the integration of Psychiatry with Primary and Specialty Care, to working within a multi-disciplinary and family context, to the development of meaningful research that will advance the field, to the application of new ways to train more effectively and more contemporaneously, and always, to seeing things through a fresh lens.

In the material that follows, you will learn some things about us. There are some major initiatives underway that are exciting (e.g., the development of the University of Connecticut's public-sector Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry with an anticipated start-date for its residency in July, 2008; the development of a specific research track for qualified individuals, etc.) and which reflect our value system as the only University-based department and training program in Central Connecticut. I hope you will be intrigued by what is happening here and will take the time to come visit us. I look forward to your inquiries and eventually, to meeting you.

Best wishes,

Leighton Y. Huey, M.D.