A powerful force for mental health at USC Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

With the international, shared trauma of the COVID-19 epidemic, one potential silver lining has been an emerging focus on mental health. But well before the first safer-at-home order, the U.S. was facing a widespread dilemma: According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in every five adults experience mental illness each year.

With both the global and local impact of that problem at mind, the Keck School of Medicine of USC has been building foundations for addressing mental health needs for years. Now an organization counting 350 faculty, trainees and staff, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health benefits people all over Los Angeles, including patients at Keck Medicine of USC, Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center and USC’s own campuses.

“There’s a growing recognition of the value of treating people’s psychological illness and distress with the same priority we treat their physical health,” said Steven Siegel, MD, PhD, professor and chair in the department and holder of the Franz Alexander Chair in Psychiatry. “We always welcome the partnership of those who share that mindset, because we have the capacity to help people in every walk of life, and in every stage of life.”

An integral asset for psychiatric treatment in L.A.

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences helps thousands of Angelenos each year as the primary provider of mental health services for LAC+USC, Keck Medicine of USC, USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and USC’s outpatient clinics. The impact is particularly profound at LAC+USC, where 75 faculty and 65 trainees work in one of the nation’s busiest safety-net hospitals.

The medical center is essential to care for the county’s underserved and economically disadvantaged residents, who often deal with mental health issues. From emergency medicine to surgical and reproductive psychiatry, USC psychiatrists collaborate universally. The 62-bed inpatient psychiatric hospital they staff includes the only public medical unit serving children and adolescents.

“LAC+USC is the largest and most historically important public hospital system in Los Angeles,” Siegel said. “That place is core to our mission, part of our history and our identity. There, we deliver a level of care equal to anything you can get at any location in the county, public or private.”

The care endeavor gains from the dedication of talented early-career psychiatrists pursuing postgraduate training at USC. That residency program is on the rise, having advanced from a place in the top 50 among programs nationally into the top 25. It is currently ranked among the 10% of U.S. psychiatry residencies.

Importantly, the department chair has been elevated to become Keck Medicine of USC’s first chief mental health officer, with oversight of all mental health services enterprise-wide. In this role, Siegel has embraced an enthusiastically collaborative style uniting clinicians from four USC departments as well as nurses and social workers.

“My approach here is to bring together all of the different groups that touch mental health,” he said. “We want to develop a single, organized system that capitalizes on everybody’s efforts without being duplicative or leaving gaps.”

A boon to mental health among Trojans

Beyond its outward-facing patient care, the psychiatry department is solely responsible for mental health services for USC students. Since that policy was instituted in 2016, there has been a threefold increase in the psychiatric help available to undergraduates and graduate students.

“Tripling the number of providers is only half the story, though,” Siegel said. “We’ve also applied the power of a high-level academic department to look at systems of care and align services with people’s needs. So it’s not only a bigger service, but also a better service.”

Part of the expansion involved keeping long-term care within the USC system. To make this possible, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences created a campus psychiatric practice from scratch, the first of its kind in the U.S., on the fifth floor of Engemann Student Health Center.

Similarly, the department turned its attention to colleagues facing some of the hardest times of their careers during the pandemic, with LAC+USC hit hard by COVID-19. USC psychiatrists were central partners in Keck Medicine’s Care for the Caregivers program, which has provided an array of services and support to more than 7,000 frontline health care workers.

Psychiatric research with a distinct community focus

Of course, advances in mental health require an active program in scientific, translational and clinical research. So the psychiatry department has been doubling down on the strength of its investigators, who already play a key role in USC’s internationally renowned program studying Alzheimer’s disease.

As the department welcomes new faculty, relevance to patients is fundamental.

“We want our researchers studying the challenges we face in the clinic,” Siegel said, “so we focus entirely on recruiting researchers who will address the needs of our populations.”

That strategy is paying off with the recent addition of associate professor Eric Pedersen, Ph.D., an expert on virtual care delivery — which has exploded in usage during the pandemic — with an interest in veteran’s issues and addiction. Meanwhile, USC is building a leading program in eating disorder research led by Stuart Murray, Psy.D., the Della Martin Associate Professor of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, and bolstered by assistant professor Kathryn Smith, Ph.D.

Siegel himself is teaming up with members of his own department including Barbara Van Noppen, Ph.D., L.C.W.S., and USC neurologists and neurosurgeons to advance the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder with deep brain stimulation.

“The more we can cultivate strengths that help us serve our patient populations, the bigger difference we’re able to make in improving their care — and ultimately, their lives,” he said.

For more information about the Department of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, visit https://keck.usc.edu/psychiatry/about-psychiatry/