James G. Baker, MD serves as Associate Chair of Clinical Integration and Services in the Department of Psychiatry at Dell Medical School in Austin, Texas. Dr Baker also serves as Systems Chief Medical Officer for Integral Care, the community mental health center for Austin and Travis County. He is a child/adolescent psychiatrist with more than 25 years of medical administrative experience in public-sector mental health, including service as CEO of the community mental health center for Dallas County and as medical director for behavioral health with the Texas Department of State Health Services.Dr. Baker is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a recipient of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Exemplary Psychiatrist Award, as well as the Mental Health America of Greater Dallas Pamela Blumenthal Memorial Award for long-term commitment to quality of care and delivery of services to people with mental illnesses.Sarah E. Baker, MD, serves as AssistantProfessor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. During her training in general psychiatry and forensic psychiatry, Dr. Baker was a Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry Fellow as well as a Rappeport Fellow with the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. She has also been a recipient of the Resident Psychiatric Educator Award from the Association for Academic Psychiatry. Dr. Baker holds a master's degree in medical humanities, and she has frequently presented on the application of medical humanities to resident and medical student education.

Working effectively in a public psychiatry setting is not easy. The work involves so much more than seeing patients and writing prescriptions. What else does it involve? Read this primer to learn more. It does an excellent job of introducing us to public psychiatry's past and, more importantly, teaches us how to work well in the present.

• 1 - The Public Psychiatrist in History2 - The Public Psychiatrist as Clinician3 - The Public Psychiatrist as Clinical Team Member4 - The Public Psychiatrist and the Patient with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities5 - The Public Psychiatrist and Integrated Health6 - The Public Psychiatrist as Leader7 - The Public Psychiatrist as Teacher8 - The Public Psychiatrist as Researcher9 - The Public Psychiatrist as Advocate10 -The Public Psychiatrist in the Future