Mission, Vision & Values

The mission of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington is to improve the health of the public through excellent clinical care, education and research. We envision a future where mental health is an important part of overall health, and mental health care is an integral part of all health care.

We provide state-of-the-art patient care at UW Medicine facilities throughout Western Washington, and expert psychiatric consultation to health care providers throughout the Pacific Northwest.

We train the mental health providers of the future and work to strengthen today’s mental health care workforce in our community, in Washington State, and around the world.

We discover solutions to the world’s most complex health problems and are dedicated to translating our research today into better health care tomorrow.

Core Values

Our core values represent what we believe in and how we approach everything we do.

We embrace and celebrate the rich dimensions of diversity within each individual. We work toward diversity of gender, ethnicity, background and interests of our faculty, staff, and trainees. We communicate about our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion efforts to show what we are doing and what we plan to do.

Diversity Statement
We are committed to having diversity in our students, residents, fellows, staff and faculty. Consistent with the UW School of Medicine’s commitment to building and sustaining a multicultural community fostering equity, diversity and inclusion, we believe we must recruit and retain individuals with diverse backgrounds including race and ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation to provide the highest quality care to the diverse patient population of the Seattle and Northwest region. The quality of our educational and research programs is strengthened by the breadth of experience, viewpoints, and knowledge brought by a diverse group of trainees and faculty.

To achieve this goal, we nurture and sustain a climate of equity and respect for all individuals. We coordinate activities with UW Medicine’s Office of Healthcare Equity to ensure we have inclusive curricula and to create educational opportunities that reach out to minority students. We seek to mentor and develop faculty and staff at all levels from diverse backgrounds and support research focused on the needs of multicultural patients from communities of the Pacific Northwest, across the United States, and around the world.

We seek and embrace partnerships with organizations and individuals that share our vision of improving the health of the public through better mental health care. We believe that “none of us is as smart as all of us.”

We are a learning organization. We are committed to learning from our successes and failures and to helping each other grow through mentorship and professional development.

We manage our resources in a responsible, sound, and transparent manner.