Loyola to sponsor midwest conference of psychiatry medical students

By Jim Ritter

For the third year in a row, the Midwest Regional Medical Students in Psychiatry Conference will be held at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and sponsored by Loyola’s department of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences.

The conference on Saturday, February 18, is a daylong event featuring speakers who will discuss current topics in psychiatry, including child and adolescent psychiatry, psychotherapy in psychiatry and global mental health care, life as a psychiatrist, life as a resident, collaborative care in psychiatry and addiction psychiatry. The conference is not open to the public.
 
The conference is co-sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association’s Psychiatry Student Interest Group Network (PsychSIGN) and Loyola’s psychiatric and neurological student interest group, Stritch MIND (Medical Students Interested in Psychiatry).
 
PsychSIGN is a national network of medical students interested in psychiatry. PsychSIGN is comprised of psychiatry interest groups at medical schools across the country. Each year, PsychSIGN holds student-oriented conferences in each of its regions across the continental United States. The Midwest region (Area 4) includes Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota.
 
“The number of medical students going into psychiatry has increased by more than 30 percent during the past 10 years, paralleling advances in the neurosciences field,” said Murali Rao, MD, FAPM, professor and chair of Loyola’s department of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences.  “This is a very positive development for keeping up with the need for specialists in mental health.”