David Folsom, MD
- Psychiatrist
- Director, Division of Clinical Psychiatry
- Vice Chair, Clinical Affairs, Department of Psychiatry
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David Folsom, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist and director of the Division of Clinical Psychiatry at UC San Diego Health. He has a special interest in providing care for people with schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses, and those with both mental and physical health problems. He uses a comprehensive, whole-person approach to psychiatric care, addressing all areas that contribute to a person's successful recovery as well as promoting life skills, providing education, and cultivating help-seeking behavior.
Dr. Folsom is leading a National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded project that focuses on improving medical care for people who are homeless and have a serious mental illness. His past research work includes collaboration with San Diego's largest homeless service provider, Father Joe's Villages, on Project 25. Project 25 has become a nationally recognized model of improving care for people who are homeless who are repeatedly in and out of the hospital and ER. By providing housing, intensive care management, harm reduction treatment and a medical home, Project 25 has been able to demonstrate better health outcomes while substantially reducing health care costs.
In 2007, Dr. Folsom was named Researcher of the Year by the California Academy of Family Physicians (CAFP). In 2011, he won the family medicine residency teaching award at UC San Diego School of Medicine for his contributions to training in mental health aspects of primary care. He was awarded the 2015 Robert D. Sparks, MD, Leadership Achievement Award by the California Medical Association Foundation for his outstanding efforts to improve patient and community health through partnerships with leaders in medicine and related health professions.
Dr. Folsom earned his medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina, and completed an internship at Mercy Hospital in San Diego. He was the first resident to be trained in UC San Diego School of Medicine's combined family medicine psychiatry residency program, which integrates family medicine and psychiatry and focuses training on underserved, high-risk, and medically ill patients. Dr. Folsom completed his two-year research fellowship at UC San Diego School of Medicine and the VA San Diego Healthcare System. Dr. Folsom is board-certified in psychiatry and family medicine.
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