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Psychiatry

October 28, 2024-November 8, 2024

Course Director
Melanie Grubisha, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
grubisham@upmc.edu

Course Description

This course introduces students to the underlying pathophysiology and phenomenology of psychiatric disorders, presenting basic approaches to assessment and management, to prepare them for clinical rotations.

Course Objectives

Knowledge-based

  1. Describe and apply the classification scheme used to categorize psychiatric illness (DSM-5).
  2. Recognize how behavioral health symptoms and syndromes derive from specific structural and functional disruptions in the brain.
  3. Describe ways that structural racism has impacted diagnosis, rates and course of illness, and prognosis in psychiatric illness.
  4. Expound on the epidemiology, etiology, course, prognosis, and treatment for common disorders
  5. Identify risk factors for suicide/violence, and basic management approaches to the dangerous patient (including involuntary commitment).
  6. Recognize basic algorithms for the initial evaluation and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders.

Skills-based

  1. Employ screening questions to evaluate patients for suicidal and homicidal behavior, alcohol and drug use, psychosis, anxiety disorders, mood disorders eating disorders, trauma and mental status.
  2. Recognize the components of a full mental status examination.

Behavior

  1. Develop lifelong habits of screening for lethality, alcohol and drug use, psychosis, anxiety disorders, and mood disorders.
  2. Develop lifelong expertise in treating uncomplicated forms of depression and anxiety disorders.
  3. Employ empathy towards psychiatric patients presenting with medical illness.
  4. Demonstrate ways in which physicians and other health care providers can work as a team to help patients cope with psychiatric difficulties, manage quality of life, and enhance wellness.

Attitude

  1. Appreciate the importance of psychiatric comorbidity, if left untreated, in producing negative outcomes in the treatment of medical illness.
  2. Approach psychiatric disorders with the understanding and acceptance that neurobiological etiologies are responsible for most.
  3. Weigh the impact of mental illness on our society.

Educational Methods​

  • Case-based learning
  • Small group workshops
  • Patient presentations
  • Self-study
  • Review sessions
  • Weekly assessments (Formative, Summative)

Evaluation

Evaluation for this course is based on a cumulative, graded Summative exam.

Requests for excused absences should be submitted via Elentra. Unexcused absences may result in grading penalties as outlined in the Policy on Absence and Attendance.