Issue 54 | October 2, 2024 | |
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Dear Faculty, Trainees, and Staff,
The High Reliability Organization (HRO) project is well underway across 13 hospitals, including the University of Maryland Medical Center and School of Medicine. As it unfolds, I want to explain what its mission entails and what accountability we all have, in clinical work, education and research. Think broadly how the principles below apply to the work that you do.
A High Reliability Organization is an entity that constantly strives to eliminate error in its operations, because the cost of error can bring serious unintended consequences. Examples of this are air traffic controllers, nuclear submarine operators, space flight command centers, and, of course, hospitals.
Building a High Reliability Organization comes down to five principles, which are:
1) Sensitivity to operations: Being aware of the state of relevant systems and processes.
2) Reluctance to simplify: Accepting that work is complex. Resist accepting a simple explanation.
3) Preoccupation with failure: Viewing near misses as opportunities to improve.
4) Commitment to resilience: Prioritizing emergency action for unlikely, but possible, system failures.
5) Deference to expertise: Valuing insights from colleagues (staff and faculty) with the most pertinent knowledge.
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A major challenge with seeking to remove human error from our operations is that we are all human, and therefore prone to mistakes and failures. “Burnout,” or the weariness, exhaustion, and sense of futility professionals feel in the workplace, is a major problem to overcome in the medical field, with 6 in 10 healthcare workers saying they are short-staffed while one third of surveyed healthcare workers planned to leave their job in 2024, according to a 2023 survey by Tebra.
The HRO project seeks to address this by remaking work culture to become less ego-driven, less stressful, and putting in place more guardrails against mistakes or oversights.
Creating psychological safety in the workplace is essential—and to do that, we will increasingly be discussing ways to improve our own organization’s culture to make it more open, more connected, and more welcoming of ideas and suggestions while also more accountable. I ask everyone who has ideas and suggestions about ways to improve to share them with your supervisor and send me an email. My inbox is always open!
Sincerely,
Jill A. RachBeisel, MD
Dr. Irving J. Taylor Professor and Chair, Department
of Psychiatry
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Dr. Todd Gould, Director of our Biological Psychiatry Research Division, co-authored a study on ketamine metabolite that found it to be a safe alternative to ketamine as an antidepressant. Findings from Todd's early-stage trial showed that ketamine metabolite was safe for participants and didn't cause any of ketamine's negative side effects such as dissociation.
See the full details of this groundbreaking study here:
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Lavon Atkinson moved to Maryland and started at Maryland General in April 2003. Initially a "just for kids" clinic before becoming a Behavioral Health Clinic, Lavon was "adopted" by Community Psychiatry at Carruthers Clinic when the clinics merged in 2017.
In her time with us, Lavon has distinguished herself as a productive and efficient psychologist at Community Psychiatry. She has made it part of her mission to know and understand Baltimore's neighborhoods and side streets firsthand, and this awareness and respect for vulnerability drives her efforts to provide a safe and judgement-free space to connect with people.
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The Department of Psychiatry Diversity Committee | |
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The Diversity Committee has resumed its monthly meetings for FY25. This year our theme is Revisiting Diversity. The climate survey is:
- Open and allows for us to get an updated sense of everyone’s experience of the overall climate in the Department of Psychiatry.
- Shared until Oct 31. So far, we are learning a lot about diversity in our Department. We have 71 responses so far. Of the respondents, it was surprising to hear how many middle children work in our Department!
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Climate Survey Link: https://umaryland.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cUaAv8rmlrKict0
Our first DEI Grand Rounds is scheduled for Thurs, Nov 21 at noon. On Our Own Maryland (OOOMD) will be featuring the TAY Outreach Project which has been a statewide initiative of OOOMD since 2012. Its mission is to empower youth with mental health/substance use struggles to share their experiences and speak out about the kinds of supports and services they’d like to see within the behavioral health system.
Learn more about On Our Own Maryland here: https://www.onourownmd.org/s/program/a193i000000C3xoAAC/transitional-age-youth-tay
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Register Today: The AAMC Webinar Series | |
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Dr. Stephanie Knight recently shared her experience participating in the virtual seminar through AAMC entitled, “Engaging Allyship: Foundational Equity Practice Skills (IDEAS).”
According to Dr. Knight, “It was a thoughtful, well-designed, engaging presentation with very real-world examples of how to engage as allies and respond to micro-exclusions or microaggressions in real time.” This webinar series is free and will be continuing throughout the fall. If interested, please register.
You will need an AAMC account to view the content: https://aamc.elevate.commpartners.com/p/240924_IDEAS
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Our Annual State of the Department: Some Highlights | |
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On Thursday, September 19, we held our annual State of the Department presentation, in which Dr. RachBeisel laid out the Department's progress and achievements over the last fiscal year, as well as the goals for the next year and challenges that remain.
You can watch the presentation in full here.
Some highlights:
03:51: Our six new full-time faculty are featured.
14:15: A full financial overview is provided, from grants & contracts, to total revenue and IDX cash collections.
33:25: Dr. RachBeisel opens the floor to questions, comments, and feedback to hundreds of staff and faculty members in attendance.
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Highlights from Our Open-House Luncheon | |
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Our Research Diversity Sub-committee had an “open house” lunch to invite new members. We had 6 new individuals come to learn about our committee (3 staff and 3 faculty)! New members were from Kahlert, MPRC, Child Psychiatry, ADEPT, and DPSR.
We asked our veteran members to share why they decided to serve on the committee. Here are some of the responses:
- “Great way to get to know people from other Divisions”
- “It’s important to me to improve the diversity of future generations of researchers”
- “Our team does a lot of fun initiatives”
A lot of positive energy for the new year ahead! Kudos to Kathryn for the group selfie pic.
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Dr. Deanna Kelly was invited to participate at the International Celiac Disease Symposium in Sheffield, England September 5, 2024 presenting her work on gliadin and schizophrenia in the symposium entitled, “New Horizons: Back to Gliadin." Her work was the only presentation in the symposium from psychiatric faculty. | |
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Dr. Jim Gold was awarded a renewal grant of $783,720 by the Department of Health and Human Services for his study titled "Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention and Working Memory in Schizophrenia."
Jim had already been funded for 20 years to date, so this renewal represents years 21-25.
Amazing work, Jim!
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Jenna Russo, MS, (picture unavailable) Doctoral Psychology Intern, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, recently published a first-author manuscript titled "Rethinking Child Behavior: Attribution Retraining Improves Child Educators' Understanding and Response" in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.
You can read it in full here:
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Last month, Dr. Deanna Kelly sat for an episode of The Metabolic Link podcast, where she shared insights into how metabolic therapies offer new pathways for treating serious mental illness. In this interview, you’ll be able to dive into a fascinating discussion on the intersection of metabolism and mental health, and the promising research on metabolic therapy for serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia.
To watch the episode in full, click here:
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Dr. Jerica Knox, Assistant Professor, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, was interviewed for a Fox45 Morning News segment on August 2, 2024, to discuss tips to help students smoothly transition back to school from summer break.
You can watch her interview in full at this link.
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