Elizabeth Matlock, MD

Medical School:  Medical College of Georgia/AU-UGA Medical Partnership, 2019

Undergraduate:  B.A. Biology and Religion, Swarthmore College, 2012

Born and raised in Georgia, I returned to the South after college to work at a therapeutic wilderness treatment program for adolescents recovering from familial dysfunction, trauma, substance use and psychiatric illness. Helping adolescents and families heal was extraordinarily meaningful. I witnessed the manifold manifestations of trauma in these adolescents alongside the transmutative power of psychotherapy and relationships. I developed strong interests in trauma treatment, psychodynamic psychotherapy and adolescent psychiatry. I also became proficient at fire starting with friction, white pine wood and a rock!

 

During medical school I saw that patients with psychiatric symptoms were often marginalized in clinical settings, with their core psychiatric issues going unaddressed. In a heartbreaking irony, often the patients who most needed care were the least able to access it due to systemic barriers. I highly value addressing patients holistically, and found that to be particularly true in caring for patients with mental illness.  Training in both psychiatry and family medicine enables me to meet the needs of underserved, complex patients who really need the generalist skill set with psychiatric expertise. 

 

While attending the Medical College of Georgia, I was honored to be inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society, and to receive both the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, and the McCranie Award for Excellence in Psychiatry. I helped develop medical school curriculum teaching LGBTQ health literacy to medical students, and I am passionate about providing gender-affirming medicine.

 

I discovered UCSD’s family-psychiatry program my first year of medical school. The sense of alignment I felt with the mission upon first learning about the program remained true throughout medical school and through the residency match process.  SVDP is such a special place and I am grateful to have the opportunity to train here.

 

Outside of medicine, I’m a 500-hour yoga teacher and taught a weekly donation based yoga class throughout medical school. I love spending time with my sweet pets and playing outdoors.