Deborah Cowley, MD attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, completed two years of internal medicine residency at the University of Washington, and then switched to psychiatry after a rotation in consultation liaison psychiatry. She started on the faculty as a researcher, a clinician, and a professor before becoming the Psychiatry Residency Program Director at University of Washington.
She created a required rotation for residents to teach them how to consult within outpatient medical clinics. She currently runs a perinatal psychiatry clinic, supervises psychiatry residents and fellows consulting in a high-risk obstetrics clinic, runs a psychiatric perinatal consultation line, works in a general psychiatric outpatient clinic, and works on research and education projects. She cites her most important work as leading education programs and finds it very gratifying to teach and support trainees as they transition into their professional careers and identities.
Five years from now, she hopes integrated care will use more technology and telepsychiatry and will include more reverse integrated care models to ensure good medical care for chronically mentally ill individuals.