The Department of Psychiatry has had a wonderfully successful year with academic appointments. The outcomes have been so remarkable that we decided it is ideal material with which to launch the new departmental newsletter, called CONNECTIONS.

In this first issue, we feature each Psychiatry faculty member promoted in 2021 so that you can get to know your peer faculty better, share in their outstanding accomplishments, and call them out for their excellent work.

Every year as our faculty grows in number and in accomplishments, I feel even prouder than the year before. All of us can feel a collective sense of pride in our progress, whether in clinical, educational, or research work. My hats off to all of you!

Beverly Wu, M.D.

The Department of Psychiatry has an academic advising program, pairing junior faculty members with more senior faculty members for promoting the success of junior faculty on all tracks at UT Southwestern (tenure, research, clinical scholar, clinician). Email Capriana Oyedeji, Project Manager, for more information.

We held a department-wide contest to name our newsletter. We were thrilled to have 64 different people respond with 123 unique options for the name! Assistant Professor Valerie Loehr, Ph.D., and Professor Robert Ruchinskas, Psy.D., individually submitted the chosen name, Connections, and each received a customized UT Southwestern travel mug (pictured above).

The Eating Disorders team has had two papers come out, one on a group therapy for eating disorders and one on altered brain function in bulimia nervosa.

The Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology team published an article though JCO Clinical Informatics that outlines their qualitative project to develop and assess an individualized electronic care plan for young adults, in partnership with the Fort Worth Adolescent Young Adult Oncology Coalition and Dr. Morhaf Al-Achkar at University of Washington. They are about halfway through the qualitative interviews. The follow-up article to this publication is expected this summer. The first author, Haley Markwardt, will be completing her dissertation with us, continuing this same work, beginning Fall 2021.

Multiple authors from UT Southwestern, including Brittany Hall, Kimberly Roaten, Madhukar H. Trivedi, and Laura Howe-Martin, collaborated on the new paper “Suicidal Ideation and Depression Among Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Patients," in Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology.

Adriana Miu and Jessica Moore have published a commentary in the journal Academic Psychiatry titled “Behind the Masks: Experiences of Mental Health Practitioners of Color During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” a wonderful paper and contribution to our times, the school, and our department.

Membership in the Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute is automatic for all faculty with a primary appointment in the Department of Psychiatry. All faculty members are eligible to apply for special funding for program activities, including support for research symposia or educational or community outreach activities. Additionally, all faculty are eligible to apply for “Investigator” status within the OBI, through the “Request for OBI Investigator Status” form. Investigator status requires that faculty meet one of several scholarly criteria and is open to all UTSW faculty (including beyond OBI departments). This category is meant to foster scholarly excellence and to enhance connections among the entire UTSW faculty working on research related to brain science. Investigator benefits include subsidies on OBI Core resources, eligibility to apply for OBI internal grant programs, and eligibility for the use of OBI laboratory space.

Check out Study Finder for clinical trials studying mental health at UT Southwestern Medical Center.