Navigating the UCLA Psychiatry Residency Program: A Comprehensive Guide

The UCLA Psychiatry Residency Training Program stands as a prominent program located in metropolitan Los Angeles. It boasts major training sites such as the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA, the VA West Los Angeles Healthcare Center, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, and a network of community-based organizations. The program is designed to train scientifically and structurally competent general psychiatrists. These psychiatrists should be comfortable in a wide variety of practice situations and who feel personal responsibility for the healthcare system in which they work.

Program Overview

The UCLA Psychiatry Residency Training Program participates in the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP or “The Match”) and accepts applications only via the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). The program emphasizes a vertically integrated system where patients have continuity of care. Residents, faculty, and staff work in multidisciplinary teams through all phases of illness, providing a rich opportunity in psychiatric education. From the earliest days of training, residents have the flexibility and encouragement to build upon their own special interests and talents.

Program Strengths

The real strength of the program is rooted in the residents themselves. Applicants sometimes ask what the program is looking for in a resident, but there is no one answer to this question. The program values diversity both in the training that it offers and the residents that it recruits and is proud to have a group of trainees with a wide variety of backgrounds, impressive accomplishments, and career interests who are dedicated to learning and providing compassionate clinical care.

Residency Tracks

The UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences has historically offered residency training opportunities at two primary sites: the main UCLA campus in Westwood and the West Los Angeles VA Hospital. It also has multiple partnerships with community sites, including publicly-funded county clinics. This breadth of training has prepared residents to provide high quality care in any treatment setting, including acute care settings such as the hospital and emergency room, longitudinal outpatient care settings like psychopharmacology and psychotherapy clinics, as well as community care settings for the underserved and socially vulnerable.

In fall 2023, the department leadership made the decision to expand its residency training capacity from 84 residents (59 in the UCLA-based residency and 25 in the VA-based residency) to a total of 103 residents over the next 4 years. This decision was made in anticipation of the move of the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital (NPH) to its new Mid-Wilshire location in summer 2026. The new hospital will have 119 inpatient acute care psychiatric beds, roughly 60% more than the current hospital, with an additional dedicated care area for psychiatric crisis stabilization services. Department leadership made the active decision to meet the additional staffing needs of the hospital through an expansion of the residency program, highlighting its commitment to training future generations of psychiatrists. In order to minimize redundancy and maximize opportunities for each resident, the department also chose to combine the two separate residencies, which already had many areas of overlap in both their clinical and didactic curricula, into a single program with a unified vision.

The move of the Resnick NPH to its new Mid-Wilshire location means that there will now be 3 primary training sites rather than 2. In addition, the increased number of residents will make the program, to our knowledge, the single largest psychiatry residency in the country. In considering the impact of these significant changes, the decision was made to not simply add more residents and training sites to the existing structure but rather to use this as an opportunity to rebuild the training program from the ground up. The residency is restructured around four Tracks based out of each training site: the Mid-Wilshire Track, the GLA Track, the Westwood Track, and the Research Track. This structure aims to provide:

A Personalized Experience for Residents: Residents are matched to the site that they are most interested in, enriching their training and providing additional opportunities for clinical and leadership experiences in specific areas of psychiatry. Each of the primary training sites offers distinct patient populations and experiences. Allowing residents to apply to and rank between the various Tracks will help match residents to the site that they are most interested in, enriching their training and providing additional opportunities for clinical and leadership experiences in specific areas of psychiatry.
Enhanced Community and Mentorship: The program hopes that having multiple distinct Tracks, each with a Track Director fully dedicated to mentoring the residents within it, will allow a program of the size to still have a close-knit family feel within each Track, allowing for closer relationships between residents, more tailored support from leadership, and enhanced resilience.
Giving Residents a Home Base: By giving each Track a home base at one of the three training sites, the program can reduce the amount of driving and give residents more time to spend caring for their patients, learning about our field, and engaging in self-care. All residents rotating equally at each of the three sites would involve frequent travel between the sites.

Overall, the program believes that these Tracks will allow residents to have access to all of the advantages and connections afforded by being in a large world-class academic department while also providing the mentorship and support of a much smaller program (in other words, it will be “big enough for opportunity yet small enough for community”).

Track Details and NRMP Codes

The program has 4 Tracks available, each with its own distinct NRMP Match Number.

Psychiatry-Mid-Wilshire: 3030400C3
Psychiatry-GLA: 3030400C4
Psychiatry-Westwood: 3030400C5
Psychiatry-Research: 3030400C1

Application Process

To apply to the UCLA Psychiatry Residency Training Program, candidates must complete several steps through the NRMP and ERAS. The steps to apply are as follows:

Complete the NRMP match enrollment materials from the AAMC.

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Complete the ERAS application for residencies.
Arrange for the program to receive:
- A Medical Student Performance Evaluation (also known as an MSPE or “dean’s letter”)
- A transcript of your medical school grades
- A personal statement
- Scores obtained on the USMLE and/or COMLEX examinations
- At least 3 letters of recommendation (at least one from psychiatry is strongly encouraged)

Holistic Review

The UCLA Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program is committed to continuously improving equity, diversity, and inclusion in the training program. They practice holistic review throughout the recruitment process and provide anti-bias training and education to faculty and fellows. They strive to uphold the principles of the AAMC Holistic Admissions Process. Some of the factors the program values are:

Commitment to child psychiatry
Clinical competency
Leadership
Other professional experiences
Experiential factors and distance traveled

Interview Process

The program reviews applications in October after receipt of the MSPE. Roughly 150 applicants will be invited for interviews, held virtually over Zoom on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am to 2pm Pacific Standard Time between November and January. All interviews should be scheduled at least two weeks in advance. If for some reason your plans should change and you are unable to keep your scheduled appointment, please be sure to call to cancel as there is usually a waiting list for interview dates. The interview day consists of an overview of the residency from the program director and chief residents followed by individual interviews with one program director (including track directors and associate program directors), one faculty member, and one resident.

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program

The UCLA Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program has two tracks:

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Clinical Track (Categorical): 6 positions per year, NRMP # 3030405F0
Research Track (3 Years): 1 position per year, NRMP # 3030405F1

Eligibility

Residents are eligible to apply if they have:

An M.D. or D.O. degree
Completed at least 3 years of Psychiatry Residency by June 30, 2026 from an ACGME-accredited program.
Passed the USMLE exam, Steps I, II, and III
ECFMG certification, if applicant is an international medical graduate

Additional Information

The program complies with the policies and procedures of the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), and all six of the categorical positions and the one research track position are filled through this program. You can sign up by calling (202) 828-0676 or going to www.nrmp.org. The due date to register with NRMP and to obtain a match number is in early December for training starting on July 1st of the following year. Notification of the NRMP results will take place in January. Please note that if you are applying from a non-California training program and you attended medical school in the United States, you are no longer required to obtain a California medical license PRIOR to NRMP rank list deadline. Should you match with the program, however, you will be expected to start the application process in mid-January and closely follow all deadlines.

A Resident's Perspective: Balancing Training and Personal Life

To provide a more personal glimpse into the residency experience, consider the schedule and reflections of a current resident:

Mondays: External moonlighting at a county-contracted mental health clinic, providing invaluable autonomy and experience with the underserved population. In the evening, self-care through gym visits and relaxation with readings on psychotherapy and patient updates.
Tuesdays: Dedicated didactic time for the PGY-3 class, featuring lectures on treatment-resistant mood and psychotic disorders, and management of severe personality pathologies. Grand rounds follow the didactic session. The afternoon is dedicated to seeing long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy patients for the Resident Psychotherapy Clinic, with videotaped sessions used for supervision. Evenings involve gym visits, dinner, and relaxation.
Wednesdays: Morning spent at the UCLA CBT clinic, with in-depth training and direct observation supervision in cognitive behavioral therapy. The afternoon is at the WLA VA campus in the VA Psychosis Clinic, treating veterans with psychotic disorders. The evening involves meeting with a psychodynamic psychotherapy supervisor.
Thursdays: Mornings are spent at the WLA VA campus for the Primary Care Mental Health Integration Clinic. The afternoon includes Family Therapy Clinic and the Attachment-Based Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy clinic. Evenings are for group supervision with a co-resident and a second supervisor.
Fridays: Mornings are dedicated to the Clinical and Translational Research Center in Semel, seeing patients participating in clinical studies. The afternoon is at the UCLA General Outpatient Clinic. Evenings often involve dinner and drinks with fellow residents.
Weekends: Include sleeping in, exploring LA, catching up on chores, and relaxing.

Advice for Aspiring Psychiatry Residents

Psychiatry Electives: Consider doing at least one psychiatry elective in your 4th year to demonstrate your interest in the field. A rotation which allows you to experience an array of psychiatric experiences, including outpatient clinics is highly recommended.
Research Opportunities: If you are interested in research, there are plenty of opportunities, either as an elective or in your free time. If you are considering an academic career, it might be a good idea to have some exposure to research. However, if you are not interested, it is probably not crucial for matching at the program of your choice.
Mentorship: Talk to the Psychiatry Training Director at your institution. S/he will give you a list of programs you should consider, and will probably be able to give you a couple of details about each program, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.
Resources: Do a little research on FREIDA. Psychiatry is interesting in that it also has a couple of combination programs that allow you to be board-certified in psychiatry and another field. For example, med/psych, peds/psych, neuro/psych, and family med/psych. There are many options, but beware that not all of the combination programs are accredited.
Application Timeline: Set a deadline of October 1 for submitting your completed ERAS application. Most programs require 3 letters - at least one from psychiatry and one from medicine (or pediatrics). An early psychiatry elective will give you the opportunity to ask attendings to write letters for you.
Personal Statement: Start as soon as possible - definitely have a rough draft finished by the end of August. Mention how your interest in psychiatry developed and your plans for your career in psychiatry. Have your friends and advisor read your personal statement.
Interview Scheduling: Interviews usually run from early-mid November through the end of January. It’s a good idea to try to get all of your interviews in one area of the country done in one trip, but don’t get too crazy. More than 3 interviews in a week severely limits your ability to care about the impression you make, not to mention that all of the programs start to run together.
Interview Preparation: Make sure you come up with 2 or 3 psychiatry patients you found interesting or challenging. I was asked about that a number of times. What did you learn from the patient? How did they influence your decision to go into psychiatry? Also know why you chose the field of psychiatry. Know your career goals well.
Post-Interview: Write thank you letters to the program directors, letting them know how interested you are in their program. Most people send thank you notes to most (or all) of the people they interviewed with.

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