Program Director Welcome Letter—Georgetown University Hospital Fellowship Program in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

I am very excited that you are interested in pursuing Child and Adolescent Psychiatry specialty training. My colleagues and I MedStar Georgetown University Hospital feel like working in this field is a truly amazing opportunity. You live in the peaks and valleys of families’ lives every day, connecting with them in an intimate way that is literally healing in and of itself. Walking with families through their joys and pains, bringing them hope, watching them grow, and helping them meet their goals is a rare privilege that we all cherish. Congratulations on choosing this meaningful, enriching career!
I am also very pleased that you are interested in learning more about our training program. We are a relatively young program, founded in 2010 and also connected to the collective knowledge and experience of a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division that has been thriving for over 50 years. In our training program, we have taken the opportunity to start fresh and have implemented innovative, evidence-based teaching and skills-building methods.

Our training program Mission reflects the mission of our entire Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division. Our program aims to train critically conscious, family-centered, structurally competent, community-oriented, and culturally humble child and adolescent psychiatrist leaders, clinicians, and healers, equipped with the knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes to prevent and alleviate youth mental health problems, promote positive youth mental health, and build health equity by bringing state-of-the-art, research-based psychiatric care to the diverse communities of the Washington DC Metro Area.

As a clinical Division, we focus on improving access to care for families in the DC Metro Area through working in schools and primary care clinics in some of the area’s most vibrant communities that are also the areas most underserved and under-resourced as well as by accepting a broad range of public and private insurances. We are specifically dedicated to allying with, learning from, and providing support to the historically marginalized African-American/Black and Latinx communities living in Washington, DC.

I also like to emphasize that we have fun while learning and build meaningful relationships with each other. These relationships create a sense of safety and belonging that helps our trainees take chances, reflect honestly on their strengths and vulnerabilities, challenge each other and their supervisors, and explore the many exciting opportunities available within our Division and within the DC Metro Area as a whole. We strongly believe that diversity, inclusion, equity, and authenticity are essential elements of a thriving learning environment, and we consider them among our core values. Our faculty also place a strong emphasis on positive psychiatry, a strengths-based approach to assessment and treatment that centers on promoting well-being. We also practice what we preach clinically by working actively to improve the well-being of our faculty, trainees, and staff.

As you will see from reviewing the details of our clinical rotations and seminar schedule, we incorporate a full breadth of treatment settings, include extensive direct contact with faculty in every facet of training, and work with children and families representative of the rich socioeconomic, ethnic, and cultural diversity of this fascinating metropolitan region. I encourage you to explore our website to learn more about our training program.

I look forward to speaking with you about the training program we love so much, and I wish you all the best in your transition to the next phase in your career. For program information, please do not hesitate to contact me at colin.e.stewart@gunet.georgetown.edu and/or our Program Coordinator, KenAndra De Saussure, at Kenandra.T.Desaussure@gunet.georgetown.edu.



With warm regards,

Colin Stewart, MD

Program Director, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Program