MPAS 620 Behavioral Health
This course covers the physiology of disorders specific to behavioral health to include the epidemiology, etiology, risk factors, pathogenesis, pathophysiology, complications, and differential diagnoses of commonly encountered psychiatric disorders through symptoms-based and systems-based approaches. Emphasis is placed on interviewing and eliciting a medical history, performing a focused physical examination, and ordering and interpreting diagnostic and/or screening studies to evaluate these disorders. Management of patients with these disorders across the life span from initial presentation through follow-up for acute, chronic, and emergent cases will be covered, as will referral when necessary, preventive medicine, and patient education. Associated medical documentation and clinical skills, as appropriate, will be taught. Topics will include approach to the psychiatric patient, taking the psychiatric history, conducting a targeted physical examination on a psychiatric patient, an overview of psychological disorders commonly encountered in clinical practice, psychiatric and behavioral assessment tools, addictions, anxiety and dissociative disorders, somatoform disorders, chronic pain, psychosexual disorders, personality disorders (including psychotic disorders), and mood disorders. Students will learn through an integrated curriculum to include computer-based, lecture-based, and collaborative instructional modalities that will include classroom, laboratory, simulation, group, community, and clinical experiences.