By Catherine Zisk, PGY-3
UVA Health
Charlottesville, VA
The 2023-2024 year has been an exciting time in the UVA psychiatry department. We have some new faces among our faculty that continue to help our program grow. This year, we were happy to welcome Dr. Catherine Leslie and Dr. Eliza Buelt to our full-time faculty.
Our residents continue to pursue opportunities in education and advocacy. Many of our residents and medical students presented their research posters at the Psychiatric Society of Virginia 2023 fall meeting. At this meeting, our PGY3 resident, Elli Novatcheva won second place for her poster presentation. Several residents and faculty attended the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry 2023 conference in Austin, Texas and two of our residents presented. In December 2023, two of our residents, along with a medical student (and future resident), our Addiction Medicine fellow, and faculty attended the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry annual meeting. Some interested residents, our Addiction Medicine fellow, and faculty will also be attending the American Society for Addiction Medicine 2024 Annual Meeting. The majority of our PGY3 class will be presenting posters at APA’s 2024 Annual Conference in New York City.
In addition to furthering our education through attending conferences, our department has been working to expand our residency curriculum. Our PGY-2 resident, Funmi Akinlade, has been working with our department leadership to create a longitudinal diversity curriculum for Psychiatry residents, with plans to launch this curriculum next academic year.
Additional developments in the curriculum include expansion of the chief positions to include an outpatient chief, a consultation-liaison chief, and an inpatient chief, in addition to two administrative chiefs.
With regards to advocacy, PGY-3 residents, Catherine Zisk and Katherine Wu, attended Medical Society of Virginia lobby day, where we joined other MSV members to speak with our state representatives regarding upcoming bills related to health care – from Medicare reimbursements to student loan forgiveness.
Additionally, an article written by PGY-3, Katherine Wu, was featured in APA’s Psychiatric Online News. The article titled ‘What Can You Do to Decrease Homelessness in the U.S.?’ highlighted the impact of homelessness on mental health and provided advocacy ideas for supporting people with housing insecurity. Our PGY-3 resident Katherine Wu, and our program director, Dr. Ait-Daoud, also ran in the Haven’s “Run For Home” 8K which benefited The Haven, a day shelter for people experiencing homelessness.
Our current PGY4’s (and one PGY3 fast-tracking to child) are moving on to do great things after graduation in June.
- Dr. William Parker will be going to UNC for Consult/Liaison fellowship.
- Dr. Grace An will be going to Northwell Zucker Hillside for Child and Adolescent fellowship.
- Dr. Adeolu Keku will be going to Tufts Medical Center for Child and Adolescent fellowship.
- Dr. Isabelle Duerr will be going to University of Penn for Geriatrics fellowship.
- Dr. Jamie Gentry will be staying at UVA for an Addiction Medicine fellowship.
- Dr. Jamie Osinovsky with be staying at UVA as an attending physician.
- Dr. Gabriel Rivera-Delgado will be joining an outpatient practice in New York City.
- Dr. Pooja Amin will be joining an outpatient practice in Southern California.
- Dr. Anjali Shankar will be joining our outpatient practice in Reston, Virginia.
Dr. Kirsten Olivier will be joining an outpatient practice in Tampa, Florida.
We are so excited for them as they move forward in their careers!
We are pleased to announce that we have opened up an additional spot in our residency program and will welcome 11 new interns this year. We excitedly welcome to our program Drs. Alexia Aguilar, Beatriz Atolfi Neves, James Bard, Natalie DeBell, Connor Jahhelka, Gabriella Miggins, Steven Neal, Brendon Pace, Tien Pham, Noah Vieira, and Shawn Ziff.
