Psychiatry Central

Issue 16 | August 10, 2020

A Letter from the Chair Dear Faculty, Trainees, and Staff: This month has been filled with a tremendous amount of work in enhancing our Department's equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts. We are off to a fantastic start, particularly with the education provided to us by Dr. Chuck Callahan on racism in Baltimore, which showcased the history and disparities in our community. The Department Diversity Committee and subcommittees are working to put together action steps, which include two workshops for leadership within the Department this month. The purpose of this training is to train our leaders, who can then return to their Divisions, programs, and Centers to educate faculty and staff in a trickle down effect -- ensuring that every level of our Department is educated and informed in positive ways to create meaningful change. As the academic year gears up, the Department will resume Grand Rounds. I will also be re-establishing bi-monthly faculty meetings to unify our ongoing goals and collaborations. It is also time to conduct a comprehensive research planning retreat to clarify our forward path for growth. Additionally, the State of the Department is scheduled for September 17. Please save the date, and stay tuned for a separate email that will be coming your way. In closing, we are now on to the third month of summer! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and getting some much needed rest and relaxation. Sincerely, Jill RachBeisel, MD Interim Chair, Department of Psychiatry

THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY DIVERSITY COMMITTEE

The Department of Psychiatry would like to introduce its Diversity Committee, led by its Core Committee and chaired by Anique Forrester, MD. The Diversity Committee includes subcommittees as focus groups on: social justice education and curriculum, research, faculty and staff recruitment and retention, Department initiatives, and social justice training. Each subcommittee will report to the Core Committee on a quarterly basis to advance the Department on anti-racism and diversity inclusion as a united front.

Anique Forrester, MD, Diversity Chair

Jill RachBeisel, MD Interim Chair, Psychiatry

Joy Chang, MD

Danae DiRocco, MD

Mark Ehrenreich, MD

Julie Fields, MD, PhD

Richard Goldberg, PhD

Gayle Jordan-Randolph, MD

Stephanie Knight, MD

Gloria Reeves, MD

Charles Robinson, MD

Eric Weintraub, MD

Social Justice Education & Curriculum Subcommittee Danae DiRocco, MD, Chair Ann Hackman, MD, Chair Raina Aggarwal, MD Melanie Bennett, PhD Mark Ehrenreich, MD Marissa Flaherty, MD Ann Gustafson, MD Ann Hackman, MD Crystal Han, MD Hannah Paudling, MD Angeline Pham, MD Darlene Robinson, MD Tripti Soni, MD Jamie Spitzer, MD Research Sub-committee Jill RachBeisel, MD Caitlin Davis, MD, MSc Greg Elmer, PhD Richard Goldberg, PhD Howard Goldman, MD, PhD Mark Kvarta, MD, PhD Faculty Recruitment & Retention Lou Cohen, MD Rachel Dillinger, MD Anique Forrester, MD Jill RachBeisel, MD Staff Recruitment & Retention Sylvia Huntley, EdD, Chair Pamela Walker, OTRL Department Initiatives & Social Justice Training Kristin Scardamalia, PhD, Chair Chuck Callahan, DO Kay Connors, LCSW-C Chelsea Cosner, MD Cora Goecke, RN, CPPS Mohammad Murtuza, MD Kimberly Reeder, MEd, MA, CRC, CHES Amit Suneja, MD Anna Zeira, MD

A STATEMENT FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY RESIDENTS

The Department of Psychiatry Residents have been eager to organize and address anti-racism within the Department. Residents from each class came together with the intent to collaborate with the Department in order to develop an environment and practices that are anti-oppressive and anti-racist. The Psychiatry Residents laid out short-term and long-term goals in four general categories: 1. Partnership and Community Involvement 2. Curriculum 3. Recruitment and Retention, and 4. Academics and Mentorship. The Residents developed ideas within each of these categories and also began taking action by reaching out to medical students and Residents across specialties to offer support and advocacy (which is being led by Chelsea Cosner, MD), as well as cultivating spaces for education and discussion around anti-racism. Led by Ann Marie Gustafson, MD, Residents also hosted the first Anti-racist Book Club, which prompted riveting and fruitful discussions of Coates' Between the World and Me. They are looking forward to the upcoming meeting on Wednesday, August 4th at 8PM to discuss Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease, by Jonathon Metz, and have invited the Johns Hopkins Hospital Psychiatry Residents to join. Additionally, Residents, led by Amit Suneja, MD, are hosting an article-based discussion about decolonizing psychiatry and establishing the school of thought that became known as institutional psychotherapy. The residents are looking forward to more opportunities to learn and advocate for change!

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY DIVERSITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION RESOURCE LIST The Department would also like to remind you that we are continuing to update our Diversity and Social Justice Education Resource List. The resource list recommends featured events, online learning, pre-recorded virtual sessions, position statements, recommended reading, and suggested videos. Many thanks to our Diversity Chair Dr. Anique Forrester and our Diversity Committee for collating this important document! Click here to access the Resource List Link

CHUCK CALLAHAN, DO, FAAP

The Department of Psychiatry would like to thank Dr. Chuck Callahan for his time in presenting, "This is Baltimore: The Impact of Historical Structural Racism on Health." If you would like to re-watch the video or forward to others, please click on the link here. Dr. Callahan also made his slides available through this link here. Thank you Dr. Callahan for sharing your perspective and data on the cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color, as well as steps we can take to listen and learn, stand, and invest and enlist.

WHITE FRAGILITY The Department of Psychiatry has ordered copies of White Fragility for every faculty member to take home and read.  "The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality." Please pick up your copy!

THE COLLABORATIVE PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE Stephanie Knight, MD The Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (CPIC) is the task force assembled in response to the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) Consent Decree issued by the Federal government in 2017. Dr. Stephanie Knight (above) serves as the representative for both the Midtown and Downtown campuses on this committee. The work group is a combination of Behavioral Health System Baltimore (BHSB) staff, police officers, crisis intervention team officers, community members, BCRI leadership, judges, BPD attorneys, and Consent Decree advisors from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Dr. Knight’s role on the Committee allows her to contribute to the process and the evolution of the relationship between the BPD and our behavioral health system of care. A virtual event held on Thursday, July 16th discussed Behavioral Health, Police Reform, and Baltimore's Consent Decree, and had over 120 people in attendance.   To find more information on CPIC: https://www.baltimorepolice.org/transparency/behavioral-health. To find more information about the Consent Decree:  https://www.baltimorepolice.org/transparency/consentdecreebasics

DID YOU KNOW? The Department has two diversity leadership training sessions planned for August for our managers and leaders. We look forward to sharing those results and takeaways!

PSYCHIATRY UPDATES The Department of Psychiatry would like to update you on an open position, newly awarded grants, & publications. We are also excited to introduce our incoming Faculty!

SAVE THE DATE Save the date for the virtual State of the Department on September 17. Details forthcoming!

OPEN POSITION PROGRAM DIRECTOR, CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY FELLOWSHIP

The University of Maryland School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry is seeking a full-time child and adolescent psychiatrist for an outstanding position for Program Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship. This position will be combined with other clinical opportunities in the Department based on the candidate’s qualifications and interests. This exceptional opportunity carries a faculty appointment at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and offers exciting opportunities for clinical care, teaching and research. Candidates must be ABPN certified or eligible. Academic rank and salary are commensurate with experience. Expected rank is Assistant Professor or higher; however, rank and tenure status is dependent on candidate’s qualifications. UMB is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law or policy. For more information or to send a letter of introduction, please contact Sarah Edwards, DO, at sedwards@som.umaryland.edu.

GRANTS & AWARDS

Robert Buchanan, MD Dr. Robert Buchanan was recently awarded for his project, entitled “Maryland Center for Excellence in Early Intervention Program." This 5-year award is from the Maryland Department of Health for $8,632,885 from 7/1/20 – 6/30/25. The goal of this project is to address the unique developmental needs of adolescents and young adults with emerging psychotic symptoms with the priority of improving functioning and optimizing recovery and resilience. Dr. Buchanan was also recently awarded a grant for his project, “Neuromodulation of Social Cognitive Circuitry in People with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders.” This is a 5-year subaward for $2,044,008 for 5/1/20 – 4/30/25, and is awarded by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Hospital (CAMH) as an NIH R61-R33 grant.

Peter Kochunov, PhD Dr. Peter Kochunov was awarded $84,387 from a Georgia State University NIH grant for “Dynamic imaging-genomic model for characterizing and predicting psychosis and mood disorders.” Dr. Kochunov’s team will provide image genetic analysis for the project by using high performance computational cluster to process genotypes and to perform preprocessing and phenotype extraction from the imaging data. Congratulations, Dr. Kochunov!

PUBLICATIONS

Mark Kvarta, MD, PhD, recently published "Illuminating a path from light to depression" in Nature Neuroscience. The article summarizes and contextualizes the issue's feature article, investigating the neuronal circuit mediating depression-related behaviors induced by mistimed light input, as well as implicating the nucleus accumbens as the downstream target of the neural pathway between intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells and the perihabenular nucleus. Thank you for sharing, and we look forward to reading!

Christopher Miller, MD, Vedrana Hodzic, MD, and Eric Weintraub, MD, recently published "Current Understanding of the Neurobiology of Agitation" in Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health. The article reviews literature on the neurobiological underpinnings of aggressive behaviors, linking psychopathology with proposed mechanisms of action of psychiatric medications shown to be effective in mitigating agitation. For the full article, click here.

THE 2020 VIRTUAL SCHOOL HEALTH INTERDISCIPLINARY PROGRAM

From July 15-September 15, the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH) is hosting the annual School Health Interdisciplinary Program (SHIP) Conference. SHIP is a regional conference that provides low-cost, high-quality continuing education opportunities in school health for counselors, psychologists, social workers, and nurses in partnership with UM School of Nursing. This is the conference’s 20th year, and first year as a virtual conference. The conference will have about 500 attendees, representing all of Maryland’s jurisdictions. Dr. Sylvia McCree-Huntley and Dr. Nancy Lever serve as Co-Chairs of the SHIP Conference.  SHIP is co-sponsored in collaboration with Maryland child-serving agencies, including the Maryland Department of Health, the Maryland State Department of Education, the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, and the Department of Human Services. Other sponsors of SHIP include the Maryland State School Health Council and the Maryland Assembly on School-Based Health Care. The cost of attending SHIP is $50. There are 28 pre-recorded sessions and over 33 continuing education hours that can be earned. To learn more information, view our program book, and register to access the sessions, visit the SHIP conference website.

SPOTLIGHT ON OUR FACULTY

The Department would like to welcome its new incoming faculty! We are excited to jump-start our many collaborations, and look forward to learning from your own areas of expertise.

Bhim Adhikari, PhD Dr. Bhim Adhikari is with the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center (MPRC), and is a physicist and computational neuroscientist with an extensive experience in analytical skills and strong understanding of signal modeling of neuroimaging data: EEG, fMRI/rsfMRI, electrophysiology data: LFP, iEEG. As a post-doctoral fellow on NIH Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K), Dr. Adhikari developed the ENIGMA rsfMRI preprocessing and analysis workflow that provides fully automated, single modality analytical approach to extract long-distance and regional connectivity metrics from resting data. The workflow has been validated for multi-site genetic research and used to extract reliable and replicable patterns of cerebral dysconnectivity across multiple psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, later in his training as an NIH-T32 fellow. Utilizing the ongoing collaboration aim at building up a network of research centers, Dr. Adhikari’s work focuses on building a COINSTAC container for ENIGMA rsfMRI workflow and distributes it among ENIGMA SZ, BP and MDD sites to interrogate the links between altered cerebral connectivity and symptomatology through distributed execution of analytical workflows.

Tiffany Beason, PhD Tiffany Beason, PhD, works with the National Center for School Mental Health Team, where she has served as a postdoctoral fellow since 2018. Dr. Beason’s research interests relate to academic achievement, positive racial/ethnic identity, adaptive social and coping skills, and sense of community among youth and young adults. Dr. Beason currently works as a school mental health clinician in a Title I Baltimore City School, where she provides supports that promote positive mental health for all as well as early intervention and treatment services for youth experiencing significant mental health difficulties. Clinically, Dr. Beason is trained as a generalist with specialized training in providing trauma-informed treatment in schools that serve primarily low-income youth and families of color. In her role at the National Center for School Mental Health, Dr. Beason engages in research, training, and technical assistance. She is currently collaborating on projects focused on teaching educators and school mental health practitioners on how to address the mental health needs of youth through the use of culturally responsive and equitable practices.

Jamie Fields, DO Jamie Fields, DO, joined faculty at the Midtown campus in July, splitting time between Carruthers Clinic and the inpatient unit. She recently completed residency at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. Prior to residency, she earned her medical degree from Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg, Virginia, and a B.S in biochemistry from the University of Virginia’s College at Wise.

Mitra Keshtkarjahromi, MD Mita Keshtkarjahromi, MD, completed her medical school and psychiatry residency at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Iran. She has research experience in the field of schizophrenia at Northwestern University in Chicago, and just graduated from her Psychiatry Residency at Texas Tech University Health Science Center in El Paso. She loves clinical practice in academic centers and enjoys working with Residents. Currently, Dr. Keshtkarjahromi works at the inpatient ward of Midtown Campus (MTC) and manages the severe mentally ill patients who need admission. Her goal is to help the Residents get their best experiences at MTC by exposing them to challenging patients and help the mentally ill community of Baltimore to get better. Overall, her field of interests are schizophrenia and psychotic disorders.

Patrick Jung, MD Patrick Jung, MD, completed his intern year in family medicine before transferring to the University of Maryland to finish his training in psychiatry. Dr. Jung has always been drawn to the acute management of severe mental illness and found a perfect match for that interest at Midtown's inpatient unit, where he now has the pleasure of working with talented and hardworking residents -- all while helping to treat some of the community's most vulnerable patients. He has always enjoyed working in Consultation Liaison and ED roles during residency, so Dr. Jung is looking forward to helping out at PES occasionally and hopes to eventually get more involved in some of the many diverse services offered by the Department throughout the University System.

Madeline Marks, PhD Madeline Marks, PhD, earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Central Florida. She attended the University of Connecticut for her bachelor's degree. Dr. Marks' research and service focus on community violence experiences, military trauma, and first responder stressor exposure. As a member of the Consultation Liaison Division, she is excited to bring her expertise in trauma-informed care and collaborating with patients and colleagues at UMSOM and UMMC.

COVID COLLABORATIONS & RESOURCES

ADULT PSYCHIATRIC DAY HOSPITAL REOPENING AT UMMC MIDTOWN CAMPUS The Adult Psychiatric Day Hospital (ADH) at UMMC Midtown Campus is set to reopen in early September of this year! The ADH provides intensive treatment for patients who require a higher level of care than can be provided in the clinic setting, and helps ease patients’ transition back to the community. We will be reopening with programmatic modifications and precautions for COVID-19 in order to safely care for our patients.   Click to learn more about the Adult Psychiatric Day Hospital.

COVID-19 EMERGENCY RELIEF FUNDING Dana Cunningham, PhD  The Prince George’s School Mental Health Initiative (PGSMHI), directed by Dr. Dana Cunningham of the National Center for School Mental Health, was recently named as one of the recipients of the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Funding from the Maryland Community Health Resource Commission for $43,083. This emergency funding will allow the PGSMHI to expand access to telemental health services to students in need by purchasing Chromebooks, WiFi hot spots, and headphones for students in need. In addition, all of the students enrolled in the PGSMHI will receive Mental Health Toolkits. The funding will also allow the PGSMHI staff to upgrade their current telehealth equipment.

SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH NATIONAL COVID RESPONSE WEBINARS Dr. Sharon Hoover joined a panel for the webinar, Addressing the Mental Health Crisis in our Schools at 3:00 PM on Thursday, July 16, as part of a virtual fly-in for national policymakers conducted by the Committee for Education (CEC) and the Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE). Several hundred participants joined to hear about best practices to support educator and student mental health during COVID-19 and beyond.   On July 23rd, Dr. Hoover presented on Best Practices to Address Student Mental Health Crisis to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. This presentation included an emphasis on integrating prevention and early intervention, lessons learned during COVID-19, including the importance of telemental health, and addressing systemic racism in our crisis systems of care for children and families.

The Department of Psychiatry is in the midst of reopening!  We have currently increased to 25% of our patient volume on site, and are currently opening up double-bed occupancy at the Downtown Campus. While the country is surging, we are experiencing an uptick in cases -- but hospital occupancy and deaths remain down. 

Save-the-Dates!

Thanks for your patience as most of our events are now cancelled or postponed. We will continue to keep you updated! Rescheduled to September 10, 2020 Tuerk Conference 8:00 am-5:00 pm State of the Department September 17, 2020 Separate announcement will be forthcoming

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