MUSC Psychiatry Chair Update
Thomas W. Uhde, M.D.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Institute of Psychiatry
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ONGOING STUDIES & PUBLICATIONS
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Did you know a team at the Medical University of South Carolina is
collaborating with Spark Biomedical to develop a better standard
of care for babies who are born dependent on opioids?
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Every day across the United States, almost 80 newborn babies are diagnosed as going into drug withdrawal because they are no longer getting the drugs their mothers used while pregnant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With few standard, evidence-based treatments, most hospitals give the babies medications like morphine – itself an opioid – to ease withdrawal symptoms. The neonatal intensive care team must then wean the baby off that prescribed drug over the course of two to three weeks. The novel treatment being tested at MUSC Children’s Health uses electrical stimulation to induce the baby’s body to produce more of its own opioid-like hormones, better known as endorphins. The idea is that by utilizing these self-produced opioids, the babies can be weaned from the morphine more quickly, reducing potential side effects and decreasing the time the baby must spend in the NICU.
Dorothea Jenkins, M.D., a professor of pediatrics in the College of Medicine who specializes in treating newborns, and Bashar Badran, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences who specializes in brain stimulation, teamed up, for this trial, with Spark Biomedical, a company that was already developing an over-the-ear neurostimulation device to deliver transcutaneous auricular stimulation (tAN) therapy to adults.
“This neurostimulation is giving the brain a little bit of a boost of its own endogenous opioids to perhaps reduce the need for exogenous morphine, which has all these dangerous side effects when delivered for prolonged periods of time in this critical neurodevelopmental window,” Badran said.
So far, three babies have received the treatment and were all safely weaned from morphine within 10 days.
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WOMEN'S REPRODUCTIVE
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
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MUSC’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is home to the Women’s Reproductive Behavioral Health (WRBH) Division. The overarching mission of this division is to improve the lives of women, children, and families by increasing the identification and amelioration of maternal mental health and substance use disorders. The WRBH division provides direct clinical services to pregnant and postpartum women, educational training opportunities for clinicians and clinical researchers, and conducts clinical research that aims to improve the identification and treatment of peripartum mental health and substance use disorders.
To learn more about the WRBH division’s clinical services, educational opportunities and/or clinical research studies go to:
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WOMEN AND PD: CLOSING THE GENDER GAP
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COVID-19 TESTING RESOURCES
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The following resource provides MUSC Health lab and testing options pertaining to COVID-19. Included on this page is information regarding drive-thru and “pop-up” mobile COVID testing locations, antibody or serology tests, drive-in lab and nurse visits, and original/classic lab testing.
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CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) UPDATES
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UPDATES VIA THE HORSESHOE
In addition to updates provided by MUSC Enterprise, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences will also provide updates through our employee intranet, The Horseshoe. Updates will be provided regularly as new information becomes available. For your convenience, direct links are provided below.
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VOLUNTEER BAN
Given the COVID-19 pandemic and until further notice, all volunteers and observers are barred from participation in departmental and MH-ICCE based activities. If there are circumstances wherein this policy causes a significant and critical issue, it should be brought to my attention for consideration of a written waiver (on an individual basis) of this policy. Thank you.
Thomas W. Uhde, M.D.
Professor and Chair
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
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MANDATORY SELF-MONITORING
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Due to the activity of COVID-19 within the hospital and community, all employees, residents, fellows and students within all MUSC entities are directed to begin daily self-monitoring for COVID-19 symptoms. This applies regardless of whether you have been working remotely on a full-time or intermittent basis. You need to continue daily self-monitoring, even if symptoms are not present.
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COVID-19 RESILIENCY CLINIC
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NAMI CONNECTION & NAMI FAMILY SUPPORT
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NAMI Connection and NAMI Family Support Offered Online
Social distancing does not mean that you have to go through difficult times alone. NAMI is here to help! We are offering NAMI Family Support and NAMI Connection online.
NAMI Connection Support is offered every Monday at 6PM until further notice.
NAMI Family Support Group is offered the 2nd and 4th Thursdays
of the month at 6PM until further notice.
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UPDATED MOONLIGHTING POLICY
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MANAGING ANXIETY RELATED TO COVID-19
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PSYCHIATRY HOSPITALIST OPPORTUNITIES
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There are currently Psychiatry hospitalist opportunities for physicians to join the Faculty in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at MUSC, an academic medical center. The positions available are for a Child Psychiatrist and a Geriatric Psychiatrist.
Job summary for Child Psychiatrist position: Candidate must be a psychiatrist with the ability to hold an unrestricted license to practice in South Carolina. The candidate must have completed a Child Psychiatry fellowship and be board-eligible or board-certified if having completed residency training greater than five years ago. Candidate would become a member of the Psychiatry Hospitalists Division and provide inpatient care on a child and adolescent psychiatry unit in the Institute of Psychiatry.
Job summary for Geriatric Psychiatrist position: Candidate must be a psychiatrist with the ability to hold an unrestricted license to practice in South Carolina. The candidate must have completed a Geriatric Psychiatry fellowship and be board-eligible or board-certified if having completed residency training greater than five years ago. Candidate would become a member of the Psychiatry Hospitalists Division and provide inpatient care on a geriatric adult psychiatry unit in the Institute of Psychiatry.
Applicants should visit the MUSC Careers page for more information/to apply.
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ANNUAL MANDATORY
MYQUEST MODULES
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UPDATE: Due to COVID-19, executive leadership has extended
the completion date for mandatory training modules to September 30, 2020.
Starting January 17, 2020, MUSC will begin assigning the annual mandatory online lessons in MyQuest. New this year, will be the opportunity to provide feedback via survey for each lesson. This will be the only official announcement regarding mandatory assignments from the University. Reminder emails will be sent to employees by MyQuest beginning in April. Listed below is the breakdown of the mandatory assignments:
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2020 MUSC
General Mandatories
(Enterprise-wide)
- Crime Prevention and Jeanne Clery Act Training
- Code of Conduct and HIPAA
- Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
- Prohibited Discrimination and Harassment
- Tuberculosis (Charleston only)
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2020 MUSC Health
Mandatory Training
(Chas., Florence, & Lancaster)
- MUSC Health General Compliance (includes Billing)
- Emergency Management Campus Security
- Infection Control for Healthcare Workers
- Stroke and Heart Early Recognition
- Meeting the Unique Needs of Patients
- MR Safety for Healthcare Workers
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2020 Annual Clinical Education (MUSC Health Clinical Care Teams Only)
- Varies depending on your clinical role
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2020 MSO Mandatories (Credentialed Providers Only)
- To be assigned dependent upon Medical Executive Committee approval.
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2020 Conflict of Interest Training (Hourly Care Team Members and University Staff Only)
- Hourly employees are excluded from the annual COI disclosure process. To ensure they continue to receive conflict of interest policy training, a COI module has been developed and assigned to those employees in MyQuest.
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Salaried employees of the MUSC enterprise receive annual COI training every April, in combination with their annual COI disclosure form; training modules precede the mandatory disclosure.
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Overview of Research at MUSC (Research Role-Based Only)
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Leadership Diversity Requirement
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Designated leaders are responsible for completing a minimum of 4 hours of Diversity and Inclusion training by June 30, 2020. Education is available in the MyQuest Diversity catalog.
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All the annual mandatory training modules must be completed no later than June 30, 2020. University employees who fail to complete annual mandatory training requirements will be subject to disciplinary action. If you have any questions, please email the MyQuest Administrators at myquesthelp@musc.edu.
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Brain Stimulation Division Researchers are
Investigating the Next Big Thing in TMS for Depression
Did you know that TMS for depression was developed right here at MUSC within the Brain Stimulation Division? Not only were some of the first clinical trials ever done for depression conducted here, but the division has participated in or led all of the major randomized trials leading to FDA approval over 11 years ago. TMS works for patients with treatment resistant depression, with 1/3 of patients getting remission, another 1/3 getting a response, and unfortunately, 1/3 not getting a good effect.
Currently, the Brain Stimulation Division is trying to improve on what we already know. If your heart stops in the gym and someone gets the defibrillator to try and save you, the defibrillator will not deliver a shock to your heart unless it knows your heart rhythm. Cardiologists have known for years that you have to synchronize external stimulation with the rhythm of the organ. We’ve ignored that so far with brain stimulation for depression.
The FDA-approved treatment delivers TMS pulses regardless of the patient’s EEG rhythm. This first of its kind NIH-funded trial gathers EEG from all patients, and then delivers the first pulse in a train synchronized with the patient’s rhythm, or not. The researchers hope to see if they can improve on the outcome numbers above.
Brain Stimulation researchers, teaming up with Dr. Truman Brown in Radiology, have succeeded in performing EEG synchronized TMS within the fMRI scanner - another world first. They found through that work that, like good dancing, rhythm matters.
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Struggling with Depression?
We are currently seeking individuals between the ages of 21-70, diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) to participate in a research trial using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Treatment and study related assessments will be provided at no charge.
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COMPREHENSIVE PSYCHIATRIC
CARE SPECIALISTS (CPCS)
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THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS
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If you would like to submit content to include in next week's
by 12:00 pm on Monday. Thank you.
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