Larger Text
Smaller TextChair's Welcome
Message from the Chair
Welcome to the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University. We are a faculty with a tradition of innovation and collaboration and a commitment to the pursuit of excellence in research, education and clinical care. This website will introduce you to the exceptional people and programs in our department.
This is a remarkable time in the history of psychiatry. We are witnessing an explosion of new knowledge about mental illness. New research findings from epidemiology, neurosciences, genetics and brain imaging are changing how we conceptualize psychiatric illnesses while research in psychotherapy and psychopharmacology have made us aware of the tremendous opportunities to alleviate the suffering of the many people with mental illnesses and addictions.
Our department is committed to understanding mental illness as it is expressed across the lifespan. We know from the landmark Ontario Child Health Study started at McMaster over 25 years ago that mental disorders are highly prevalent in childhood. Many childhood disorders continue to have their impact in the adult years while many mental disorders that adults experience are first expressed in their childhood and teenage years. Understanding how mental illnesses are expressed across development and how prevention and early intervention strategies can impact on this expression are central to our department’s mission.
Our increasing understanding of mental illness also challenges psychiatry to redefine its role as a medical specialty. Just as we now appreciate that mental illnesses and addictions frequently co-occur and must be addresses together, we also understand that many other medical disorders, from cancer to heart disease to HIV, carry a high risk of psychiatric co-morbidity. These co-occurring mental illnesses contribute substantially to the quality of life, and capacity for recovery of many people experiencing complex medical illnesses. Our department has a longstanding commitment to insuring that psychiatric care be integrated holistically with other aspects of medical care.
Progress will result from knowledge generated though psychiatric research. As you will see in our website, a broad range of research takes place within our department, from studies of the epidemiology of mental illness and its determinants, prevention studies and health system innovations, imaging and electrophysiological studies, clinical trials of pharmacologic and psychotherapeutic interventions, through to biochemical and molecular studies of brain functioning. As the birthplace of evidence-based medicine, McMaster has a proud tradition of carrying out innovative, collaborative research that advances clinical care.
Our faculty are devoted to providing exceptional educational experiences to our students across an array of undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The "McMaster Approach" to health sciences education is founded on the belief that the study of health encompasses not only the problems of illness, but also the impact of biological processes, environment and lifestyle on the individual, the community, and society. Community oriented, people-centered, interdisciplinary, and problem-based, this approach has become a hallmark of the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. Our residency training program in psychiatry, accredited by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, provides a 5-year specialty training program in psychiatry to over 35 physicians. The department has a proud tradition in mentoring clinician scientists through our Clinical Investigator Training Program. Residency training in clinical psychology is offered through our affiliated-university hospitals, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and Hamilton Health Sciences. Our Clinical Behavioural Sciences Program provides clinical training to health professionals to advance their understanding of mental health models of practice and provide enhanced psychotherapy training. PhD and MSc students are mentored by our faculty through the McMaster’s graduate programs in Neuroscience, Medical Sciences, and Health Research Methodology.
Our Department has benefited greatly from the consolidation of all hospital-based mental health services in Hamilton (a city of 500,000 people) to our two McMaster-affiliated hospital groups. With this consolidation, we have been able to integrate our university and hospital programs into six divisions:
- Child Psychiatry
- Schizophrenia
- Geriatric Psychiatry
- Mood and Anxiety Disorders
- Forensic Psychiatry
- General Psychiatry
All psychiatric services for adults are based at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton where our McMaster department is also located. Our child psychiatry services are based at the McMaster Children’s Hospital and include a new Child and Youth Mental Health Program inpatient unit opened in 2009. Affiliated hospitals also include the Homewood Health Centre in Guelph and the Waypoint Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene, Ontario.
I hope that the information we provide to you in our website will be interesting and useful to you. We are pleased to welcome you to our clinical, research and teaching programs.
