Vision & Mission Statement

The vision of our program is to improve mental health care in our community by training competent Geriatric Psychiatrists who will provide the highest quality of patient care to older patients in the state of Florida and ultimately throughout the country.

Our mission is to raise community awareness of mental health and cognitive disorders that affect the elderly, reduce stigma, promote wellness and healthy aging strategies, and increase access to quality mental health care for the elderly by transitioning to a trauma-informed care model with help from national level experts. Other plans to achieve our vision include creating outstanding educational programs at UF and collaborating with other professional and advocacy groups to develop best practices in geriatric psychiatry. Our fellows, residents, and faculty will work closely with the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) program as part of this multidisciplinary collaboration to develop skills in navigating and utilizing the spectrum of services in our community-based system of care.

Program Aims

Our program is one of the few geriatric psychiatry fellowship programs in the state of Florida. With the dramatic increase in the world’s older population it is approximated that, by 2030, there will be only one geriatric psychiatrist for every 6000 patients. As Florida is a particularly retirement friendly state, the need here is even greater.  Our goal is to graduate competent well-trained geriatric psychiatrists that can address these needs in our state and beyond. The program’s overall aims are to:

1) Recruit an increased number of fellows to the University of Florida geriatric psychiatry fellowship program in order to provide additional board-certified graduates that practice in Florida and throughout the rest of the country.

2) Graduate board-certified Geriatric Psychiatrists who possess clinical expertise in treating a wide range of psychiatric disorders, are well aware of trauma informed care and are community advocates for geriatric mental health.

3) Contribute to scholarly advances in the field of Geriatric Psychiatry by increasing both the number of fellow presentations at national conferences and program fellow and graduate publications.