About me
I approach all my patients and families with compassion, integrity and respect. I was born and raised in Bosnia & Herzegovina and moved to the United States at age 16 years after winning a scholarship. I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut (UConn), majoring in Molecular & Cell Biology and German Literature. I graduated summa cum laude with the highest honor bestowed on undergraduates, University Scholar. I completed a thesis studying developing brain cells. During my time at UConn, I was a Phi Beta Kappa scholar and a Jack Kent Cooke National Scholarship nominee.
After undergraduate studies at UConn, I enrolled in the combined MD/PhD program at Washington University in St. Louis (aka WashU). WashU is a top medical school with the largest MD/PhD program in the country and 23 Nobel laureates on its past faculty. This program combines medical school (MD) and graduate school (PhD) training with the goal of furthering bench-to-bedside research and clinical care.
My doctoral dissertation (PhD) focused on the genetic regulation of neuroendocrine cells in the brain. During my graduate work, I spent time at Brandeis University collaborating with Dr. Michael Rosbash, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2017. This work led to the publication of a paper (Hadzic et al. 2015) that I co-authored with Dr. Rosbash and my graduate advisor, Dr. Paul Taghert.
After completing the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at WashU, I stayed on and pursued a residency in psychiatry at Washington University / Barnes-Jewish Hospital / St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
After 3 years of psychiatry internship and residency, I fast-tracked into the Child & Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior / Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Los Angeles, CA. I am board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) in Adult Psychiatry, and, separately, in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. I continue to do research in autism genetics at UCLA.
I have been in practice since 2013, and have completed over 12,000 hours of general medical, specialty and subspecialty training. After a total of 4.5 years of undergraduate education, 4 years of MD curriculum, 4 years of PhD curriculum, 3 years of psychiatry residency, 2 years of child and adolescent psychiatry subspecialty training (fellowship), with dual ABPN Board Certifications, I am able to offer a comprehensive and methodical assessment and treatment to your child/teen or to adult patients with any psychiatric disorder.
Through my rich training experiences at top medical school and residency / fellowship institutions, I learned to diagnose and treat many different conditions from the following national leaders in their field:
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD):
Drs. John Constantino (WashU), James McCracken (UCLA) & Anne Glowinski (WashU)
OCD, Anxiety, Tourette Syndrome / Tic Disorders:
Drs. Erika Nurmi (UCLA), John Piacentini (UCLA) & James McCracken (UCLA)
Eating Disorders:
Drs. Monica Bishop (WashU), Kim McCallum (WashU), Mark DeAntonio (UCLA) & Michael Strober (UCLA)
Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder and Substance Use Disorders:
Dr. Dragan Svrakic (WashU)
Treatment Resistant Depression:
Drs. Dragan Svrakic (WashU) & Charles Conway (WashU)
Personality Disorders:
Drs. Dragan Svrakic (WashU) & C. Robert Cloninger (WashU)
ADHD:
Drs. James McGough (UCLA) & Caroly S. Pataki (UCLA)
My Publications
Chiang C, Scott AJ, Davis JR, Tsang EK, Li X, Kim Y, Hadzic T, Damani FN, Ganel L; GTEx Consortium. The impact of structural variation on human gene expression. Montgomery SB, Battle A, Conrad DF, Hall IM. Nat Genet. 2017 Apr 3. doi: 10.1038/ng.3834.
Hadzic T, Park D, Abruzzi KC, Yang L, Trigg JS, Rohs R, Rosbash M, Taghert PH: Genome-wide features of neuroendocrine regulation in Drosophila by the basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor DIMMED. Nucleic Acids Res. 2015 Feb 27; 43(4):2199-215. PMID: 25634895
Enright JM, Lawrence KA, Hadzic T, Corbo JC. Transcriptome profiling of developing photoreceptor subtypes reveals candidate genes involved in avian photoreceptor diversification. J Comp Neurol. 2015 Mar 1;523(4):649-68. PMID: 25349106
Park D, Hadzic T, Yin P, Rusch J, Abruzzi K, Rosbash M, Skeath JB, Panda S, Sweedler JV, Taghert PH. Molecular organization of Drosophila neuroendocrine cells by Dimmed. Current Biology. 2011 Sep 27;21(18):1515-24. PMID: 21885285
Watanabe M, Hadzic T, Nishiyama A. Transient upregulation of Nkx2.2 expression in oligodendrocyte lineage cells during remyelination. Glia. 2004 May; 46(3):311-22. PMID: 15048854
Hadzic T, Wang H, Nishiyama A. Expression of Nkx2.2 transcription factor in gray matter NG2 cells. J Neurochem Suppl. 2004