Medical School Courses and Clerkships

Psychiatry and behavioral sciences are taught during both the pre-clerkship and clerkship parts of medical school. Preclerkship instruction is provided to first- and second-year students and explores the behavioral determinants of health, doctor-patient relationship, and human development; offers patient interviewing apprenticeships; and examines the major psychiatric disorders including psychotic, mood, anxiety, eating, trauma-related, somatic symptom, and substance use disorders.

Elective courses are also offered in topics like careers in psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, research, and group discussions of the medical student experience. First and second-year medical students now have opportunities for early clinical experiences in psychiatry.

Clerkships and Continuity Clinics in the third and fourth years of medical school offer clinical instruction in inpatient and outpatient interdisciplinary settings, designed to teach students how to conduct a diagnostic assessment and to use standardized diagnostic criteria and psychiatric treatments. Interest groups in psychiatry and addiction medicine are open to all students.

Explore medical student and graduate student level courses from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Medicine's Course Catalog and clerkships offered by the MD Progam.