Welcome to The Ohio State University’s Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Health. We strive for academic pre-eminence and best-in-class comprehensive mental health care, and we are transforming our department toward greater research impact to complement our outstanding clinical services. We are dedicated to distinction — always and in all ways.

What do we mean by distinction?

We believe that distinction can be measured in the impact we make relative to our goals.

• Are we saving lives and do our patients suffer less and recover faster?
• Do our discoveries in the lab help explain disease, and lead to improved insight and new and better treatments?
• Upon graduation, are our learners better equipped, more empathic and more curious than when they started?

Our history of compassionate care

In 1847, Samuel M. Smith, MD, was appointed professor of medical jurisprudence and insanity at Willoughby Medical College of Columbus, Ohio (the original trace of The Ohio State University College of Medicine), making him the first person to chair a department of psychiatry at an American medical school.

Since that esteemed beginning, our department continues to provide state-of-the-art comprehensive care across the continuum, including emergency/crisis, inpatient, consult-liaison, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient and outpatient care. Our success is enhanced by the facilities and services available at the flagship psychiatric, behavioral and addiction treatment centers at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center’s Harding Hospital (84 inpatient adult beds) and Talbot Hall (25 inpatient adult beds) and several ambulatory sites — and Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion for inpatient and outpatient child and adolescent psychiatric care at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Our Team

Our growing multidisciplinary team of over 100 primary faculty (of adult and child psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, neuroscientists) members helps us create a unique, fertile setting for the best patient care, superior education and training, and groundbreaking basic, translational and clinical science. Our medical students, psychiatry residents, fellows and clinical psychology interns benefit from the complementary expertise of our diverse faculty and from our varied settings and levels of care. In 2019, we welcomed our largest entering class of 14 psychiatry residents, and our department fellowships include addiction, child and adolescent psychiatry, consult-liaison and forensics.

Notable strengths and areas of targeted growth

We are dedicated to continual improvement and new initiatives, including:

• Comprehensive care for mood disorders, including a dedicated program to deliver specialized care for treatment-resistant depression across the care continuum and a center of excellence as part of the National Network of Depression Centers (NNDC)
• Comprehensive care for psychosis/schizophrenia, including specialized care for youth and young adults with early psychosis at our Early Psychosis Intervention Center (EPICENTER)
• Comprehensive care for trauma, stress and anxiety, including specialized, trauma-informed therapy and education through our Stress, Trauma And Resilience (STAR), Trauma Recovery Center, and Trauma Program
• Comprehensive care for addiction and other compulsive behaviors, including the emerging Comprehensive Addiction Center in partnership with the Ohio State College of Medicine
• Innovation in the study and prevention of suicide within the Suicide Prevention Program
• Integration of psychiatry and behavioral health with medicine, such as in consult-liaison, health psychology and collaborative care
• Interventional psychiatry and neuromodulation, including ElectroConvulsive Therapy (ECT), Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), intravenous and intranasal ketamine, Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), and other innovative treatment options
• Innovative and new treatments under investigation in clinical trials
• Psychoneuroimmunology basic, translational and clinical research in partnership with the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research (IBMR)
• Functional and molecular brain imaging research of emotion, cognition and action in anxiety, depression, addiction, aggression and psychosis

The best treatment at the best place and at the best time

As we grow and innovate our services, we strive to meet patients wherever they are. We also strive to think creatively about effective treatment and delivery options. This includes extending care beyond our physical offices and leveraging new technologies such as e-health, telemedicine and digital health. This ultimately gives patients more treatment options to choose from, which will allow us to detect and prevent problems while delivering care wherever and whenever it is most needed.

Changing the future starts now

We look forward to working with you to create a better future for psychiatry and behavioral health — a future that is focused on prevention, diversified care, recovery and resilience. We also appreciate the opportunity to update you on our recent work and accomplishments. Please explore our website in depth today, but be sure to come back later for updates and to learn even more about our work, the passions of our faculty, trainees and staff, and our many initiatives in the laboratory, classroom, clinic and community.

K. Luan Phan, MD
Chair and Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Health
Chief of Psychiatry Services for Health System
Jeffrey Schottenstein Endowed Chair of Psychiatry and Resilience