About AADPRT

AADPRT President’s Message

Dear Fellow AADPRT Members:

It is a privilege and an honor to serve as your President this year. I have been a residency director and member of AADPRT for the past 11 years, and am continually impressed by the warm, welcoming, collegial nature of this organization. It is a joy knowing and interacting with such a talented group of people, who share a passion for excellence in education and care for the mentally ill.

As psychiatric educators, we have the crucial and exciting responsibility of preparing psychiatry residents and fellows to be the clinicians, teachers, and researchers of the future. We are the leaders within our departments and institutions in upholding high standards of education in an environment with many competing interests and pressures. In addition, we have the opportunity to create a vibrant, nurturing, thoughtful culture of learning for our trainees and to work with our faculty colleagues to foster their enthusiasm for teaching and mentoring.

In turn, AADPRT has a central role both in supporting our local efforts and in advocating for our ideals and for excellence in psychiatric residency education in the national arena. Through our annual meetings, listserv, website, and taskforces addressing important national issues, we have the opportunity to collaborate, share experiences, and make a difference in the future direction of residency education in psychiatry.

My hope is that we can continue, as in the past, to safeguard core, enduring values in psychiatric education, while also looking to the future. It is our challenge and responsibility to define what our graduates will need to practice psychiatry in the next generation and how best to teach it.

Throughout the coming year, I hope that we will have an ongoing, open discussion about issues of importance to all of us. I welcome your input. If you have ideas, comments, or questions, or would like to be more actively involved in AADPRT, please feel free to contact me or members of our Executive Council.

Warm regards,
Deb Cowley