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The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies
(CAMS) Undergraduate Minor at New York
University Jess P. Shatkin, M.D., M.P.H., and
Nadia M. Addasi, B.A. NYU Child Study Center, New
York University School of Medicine
OBJECTIVES
METHODOLOGY
CONCLUSIONS
RESULTS

• Obstacles
• The CAS Curriculum Committee, which is composed
  of a Dean and faculty and must approve of all new
  courses, had many concerns
• Would psychiatrists and psychologists, who had
  spent the majority of their careers in schools of
  medicine teaching professionals, be able to teach
  undergraduates?
• Would the psychiatric approach to teaching be
  more fact and skill driven, rather than one of
  open inquiry befitting a liberal arts education?
• How would the NYU Child Study Center physically
  manage a college minor, considering our two-mile
  distance from campus?
• Would CAMS courses compete with courses from
  established CAS departments?
• The Academic Senate must approve of all new
  programs of study, and many members doubted the
  veracity of child psychiatric illness.
• Gaining Approval
• An Advisory Committee was formed of individuals
  who supported the development of the CAMS
  program the committee was composed of the Vice
  Provost of NYU, full-time and volunteer clinical
  faculty from the NYU Child Study Center, and
  various professors of psychology, sociology and
  neural science from CAS.
• The Advisory Committee assisted us in thinking
  about how to address the concerns of Curriculum
  Committee and Academic Senate.
• CAMS was approved in April of 2006 on its second
  pass through the Academic Senate our first
  course launched that September.
• Establishing Goals
• The goals of the Minor were established from the
  outset as part of the initial proposal submitted
  to the Academic Senate (see table 2).
• Structure of the Minor
• Five courses (20 credits) must be completed to
  confer the Minor degree.
• At least three of these courses must be from
  within the CAMS department, and two can be from
  eligible non-departmental offerings.

• Outline the development, structure and operation
  of the CAMS Minor so that others may replicate
  the program
• Identify how a school of medicine can have a
  positive impact on undergraduate education
• Illustrate how psychiatrists can encourage
  undergraduate students to enter the field
• Suggest a novel method for psychiatry residency
  programs to offset the costs of residency training

• We believe that our first 3 program goals are
  currently being met (Table 1).
• The 4th goal is lofty and difficult to assess but
  will be followed over time we hope to offer an
  image of how CAMS affects student career choices.
  
• There is no doubt that many CAMS students are
  self-selected and likely to have already decided
  to build a career in child mental health, thereby
  introducing bias into the final program goal.
• In an effort to appeal to students with diverse
  interests, we have developed courses in media,
  literature, divorce, and drug abuse (see table
  3).
• CAMS demonstrates that Schools of Medicine,
  particularly Departments of (Child and
  Adolescent) Psychiatry, can have a positive
  impact on undergraduate education.
• Based on course evaluations and increasing
  enrollment, it is clear that the CAMS Minor has
  been successful.
• Independent Study in particular benefits the
  Department, as it offers no-cost research
  assistance to faculty from students receiving
  credit.
• Income generated makes CAMS self-sustaining and
  offers discretionary funds to the Department of
  Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
• Future directions involve (1) Expanding our
  program into a full college major and (2)
  encouraging the development of CAMS-like programs
  nationally through presentations at academic
  conferences and publications in peer-reviewed
  journals.

• 8 students graduated with the CAMS degree in May
  2008.
• 42 students have officially declared the CAMS
  Minor.
• Income for the fall 2008 semester was over
  530,000 we expect over 600,000 in the Spring
  of 2009 (see table 5).
• Enrollment data substantiates the popularity of
  our courses (see table 6).
• Course evaluation data indicates students are
  highly satisfied with CAMS courses (see table 7).
• Qualitative data indicate that students are
  changing their career paths.
• Independent Study is highly popular among
  students and offers faculty free research
  assistance.

BACKGROUND

• The challenge of child and adolescent mental
  health
• Half of all chronic cases of mental illness are
  now recognized to begin by age 14 three-quarters
  of cases begin by age 24 (1).
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is the most
  underserved of all medical subspecialties (2).
• According to the AACAP, there are currently 7,000
  child and adolescent psychiatrists practicing in
  the United States, yet the need is estimated to
  be as high as 30,000 (see table 1).
• The need for child and adolescent specialists in
  the fields of social work, education, and
  psychology is equally as great (2, 3, 4).
• Why reach out to undergraduates?
• 70,000 B.A. degrees are conferred annually in
  Psychology (4).
• Undergraduates generally have little or no
  exposure to psychiatrists in an academic setting.
• Mentorship by psychiatrists could potentially
  increase the number of students who choose to
  study medicine and, ultimately, psychiatry.
• The birth of CAMS at NYU
• Over the past five years, there has been a
  growing national awareness of the mental health
  needs of college students.
• At NYU, a series of 6 suicides occurred during
  the 2003 04 academic year another in 2007.
• Mental health promotion and disease prevention
  was pushed to the forefront of the campus agenda.
• In the summer of 2005, the Dean of the College of
  Arts and Science (CAS) requested that the NYU
  Child Study Center consider the development of a
  program of study in child and adolescent mental
  health to add to the Universitys academic
  offerings.

Table 4 Financing CAMS
Table 7 Course evaluations
Table 5 Income per semester
Table 3 Courses and Instructors
Table 2 CAMS Minor Goals
Table 1 The Workforce
1. Students will explore the relationship between
human behavior and its biological and
environmental bases 2. Students will increase
their intellectual curiosity and build analytic
and problem-solving skills 3. Students will be
challenged to think critically about the concepts
of normal or typical versus abnormal
behavior and engage in a meta-level analysis of
the social, historical, and cultural context of
mental health, illness, and diagnosis and 4. We
will encourage those students with a natural
interest and inclination toward careers in social
work, education and special education,
psychology, law, medicine, sociology, nursing,
public health, scientific journalism, and
psychiatry, to consider focusing their future
career in some significant capacity on children
and adolescents.
Table 6 Enrollment per semester
Bibliography
1. Kessler RC, Chiu WT, Demler O, Merikangas KR,
Walters EE. Prevalence, severity, and
comorbidity of 12-month DSM-IV disorders in the
National Comorbidity Survey Replication.
Archives of General Psychiatry. 62(6)617-27,
2005. 2. U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. Mental Health A Report of the Surgeon
GeneralExecutive Summary. Rockville, MD U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services,
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, Center for Mental Health
Services, National Institutes of Health, National
Institute of Mental Health, 1999. 3. Hughes HM.
The need for more child-oriented training in
clinical psychologists. Journal of Clinical
Child Psychology. 14(2)165-66, 1985.
4. Braslow KJ, Feeney DJ, Elliott GR, Matthews
KL, Bush AC. Improving recruitment and funding
in psychiatry by teaching college undergraduates.
Academic Psychiatry. 29(5)459-463, 2005.
5. Shatkin JP, Koplewicz HS. Innovation in
education The Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Studies (CAMS) minor at New York University.
Academic Psychiatry, 32(5), 2008, in press.
More information available at
www.aboutourkids.org/education/undergraduate_minor