May 4, 2023-May 19, 2023
12 half days
Course Director
Jody Glance, MD
Associate Professor
Department of Psychiatry
glancej@upmc.edu
Course Description
This course follows the neuroscience course with study of functional manifestation of diseases or altered activity of the brain.
Course Goals:
- To familiarize students with the most common and important psychiatric illnesses.
- To help students prepare for clinical encounters with psychiatrically ill patients by providing a foundation for understanding psychiatric disorders and principles of psychiatric assessment and management.
- To foster appreciation for the fact that psychiatric illness is commonly encountered in all medical practice, and early detection and treatment can significantly improve patient outcomes.
- To build on material from the preceding neuroscience course in showing how neurobiological factors play out in behavior, and how treatment approaches derive from this understanding.
Educational Methods
- Lectures
- Clinical case conferences
- Self-study exercises
- Patient write-ups
- Videotaped patient interviews
- Live patient interviews
Curricular Themes
Epidemiology; Human development/life cycle; Medical ethics; Medical genetics; Medical jurisprudence; Mental health and mental disorders; Substance use disorders; Violence /trauma.
Evaluation
Evaluation for this course is determined as follows: 80% of the final grade will consist of performance on an MCQ exam and 20% will consist of a quiz.
Grading: This course comprises 30% of the grade for the Organ Systems Pathophysiology Block, Section 1. Grading for the block is Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory.