Letter from the Chair
Welcome to the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Florida. I have spent my entire professional career at UF, a dynamic institution with outstanding physical and intellectual resources, rigorous academic programs, and a proud tradition of excellence. The Department of Clinical and Health Psychology is located within the School of Health Professions in the College of Public Health and Health Professions. Our administrative structure is somewhat unique in that we are a freestanding Department of Clinical and Health Psychology in a major academic health science center, rather than in the more common location in a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Although a diversity of clinical and research interests are represented on the faculty, all are committed to the scientist-practitioner model of education and training in clinical psychology.
The Department has two APA-accredited training programs, a Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology and a Predoctoral Internship. The Doctoral Program, which has been continuously accredited since 1953, educates and trains students to generate and integrate scientific and professional knowledge, attitudes and skills so as to further psychological science, the professional practice of psychology, and human welfare. The graduate of this training model is capable of functioning as an investigator and as a practitioner, and may function as either or both. Our alumni are employed in broad sectors of the educational and healthcare environment. Beginning in 2007, we will offer a Clinical Science track, in addition to our longstanding Scientist-Practitioner track. The Clinical Science track will provide enhanced research opportunities for those students who aspire to an academic career, while the Scientist-Practitioner track will continue to focus on science-practice integration key to diverse career paths. The Predoctoral Internship has been accredited since 1963 and serves as the capstone predoctoral year of training in clinical psychology.
Both programs offer general training with an opportunity to obtain more focused research and clinical training in Clinical Child/Pediatric Psychology, Neurorehabilitation, Neuropsychology, and Clinical Neuroscience, Clinical Health Psychology, or Emotion Neuroscience. Our tracks have recently been used as examples as “model programs” in specialty certification applications to APA’s Commission on the Recognition of Specialties and Proficiencies in Professional Psychology (CRSPP). The development of Public Health programs within our college provides exciting new opportunities for our students whose career paths may require expertise in assessment or intervention at the population level. Our partnership with Public Health and other departments within our college is expected to enhance and supplement our training in the core science and practice of psychology.
Our faculty is extremely productive and well positioned to perform leading edge interdisciplinary clinical research. During the past year, faculty published 79 refereed journal articles and 11 book chapters and received nearly $3.5 million in new research funding. The faculty conducts research in empirically-based interventions for child behavior problems, causes and consequences of ADHD, adherence to medical procedures in children and adults, pediatric feeding disorders, psychological adjustment to implanted medical devices, health promotion and lifestyle modification in obese individuals, gender and other individual differences in pain experience and expression, sleep disorders and cognition in the elderly, psychoneuroimmunology of cancer, emotion and the brain, cognitive impairments in dementia and epilepsy, pediatric epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, postoperative cognitive dysfunction, preclinical detection of dementia, and functional imaging of neural plasticity in rehabilitation. Our students successfully complete for national research awards – since 2002, they have earned 9 National Research Service Awards (NRSA) and have completed successfully for Foundation and APA awards. Over half of our students published at least one peer-reviewed article in 2005-2006, and 75% presented their research at national meetings.
Our programs are also known for excellence in clinical training. Students and interns work with a diverse group of clinical supervisors to obtain broad and general grounding in empirically based practice while having the opportunity to begin developing skills in an area of specialization. Students obtain broad training in assessment and intervention, seeing cases across the lifespan in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Our students’ match rate with accredited internship programs (93% since 2000) compares favorably with any program in the country.
Excellence in education and training, seamless access to resources for teaching, research and service, and a community recently voted as one of the most liveable places in the United States are all reasons why it’s great to be a Florida Gator.
With this as a background and an introduction, I want to welcome you to our website. I invite you to explore and to learn more about us and our programs.
Russell M. Bauer, Ph.D., ABPP/CN
Professor and Chair
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology
University of Florida
PO Box 100165 HSC
Gainesville, FL 32610
(352) 273-6556
