Crisis Stabilization Program - Emergency Psychiatry

The Emergency Psychiatry Service is a 24-hour ER unit. The unit evaluates acutely disturbed psychiatric and substance abuse patients who present at the UNC Hospitals Emergency Room, and is closely linked to the Crisis Clinic.

Emergency services are available 24 hours a day at UNC. 

During the day, call 919-966-5217 to reach the Psychiatrist-on-Call. 

During evenings, nights, weekends and holidays, call 919-966-4131 and ask for the Psychiatrist-on-Call.

24 hour Walk-In Emergency Services are available through the UNC Hospitals Emergency Room, which is located on the bottom floor of the new Neurosciences Hospital.

The primary goal of the UNC Department of Psychiatry Emergency Service is to provide high quality emergency psychiatric evaluation and disposition to the citizens of North Carolina in a compassionate, attentive, and clinically prudent manner. Patients treated by the Emergency Service include adults, adolescents, and children who present voluntarily or on petition for commitment. The Psychiatric Emergency Service also provides consultation to patients being treated in the UNC Emergency Department and to patients referred by other UNC outpatient clinics. Furthermore, our Emergency Service is committed to evaluate all Orange-Person-Chatham (OPC) patients in need of services secondary to shortage of professional staff at any of those sites.

It is the policy of the Emergency Service to evaluate any individual requesting our service. It is against our policy to discriminate against evaluation based on race, age, sex, religion, ethnicity, other personal characteristics or any combination of the above.

The administrative and clinical management of the Psychiatric Emergency Service is staffed during working hours (Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.) by a second year resident and the attending on call.

During after-hours (from 4:30 p.m. until 8:30 a.m. and weekends and holidays), the Psychiatric Emergency Service is staffed by a first-year resident, a second-year resident, and the attending on call.