Message from the Chief:
The Division of Medical Psychology has overlapping missions of evaluation and treatment, education, and clinical research. As a unit in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Florida Health Science Center, we strive to embody the values exemplified by our larger university health care institution. We deliver empirically supported and evidence based evaluation and treatment to our patients. The physician scientist and scientist health care practitioner models have shown an increasingly pervasive penetration in medical schools and academic health science centers in the United States. As in the training of physicians and other health care professions, the education and training of medical psychologists is increasingly focused on evidence based practice and empirically supported treatments.
In the last half century since psychology was introduced in medical schools, the number of psychologists has grown to over 5000. Initially psychologists in medical schools had their academic appointments in Departments of Psychiatry. Psychologists are increasingly found in other departments ranging from Pediatrics and Geriatrics to Family Practice and Neurology. However, of the 5000 psychologists employed in medical schools and academic health science centers, 3000 still have their appointments in Departments of Psychiatry. Today physicians in psychiatry and other areas of medicine appreciate the value of psychologists for their training in measurement and psychometrics, research, statistics, as well as their expertise in empirically supported treatments, and evidence based treatments. As medical psychologists we strive for excellence in collaborating with physicians and practitioners from other health care disciplines on complex health problems in addition to mental health. We prepare the medical psychologists of the future to learn and grow with modern medicine and health care.
Gary Geffken, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chief
Division of Medical Psychology