Dear Faculty, Trainees, and Staff:
It is July, the Governor has lifted the State’s mandatory masking and those who have been working remotely are gradually returning back to work on campus. A few reminders out of respect for our patients, their families, and those who are unvaccinated:
- We will continue to practice masking, hand washing, and distancing in all clinical spaces, indoor public spaces, and when in the company of unvaccinated individuals.
- As we return to work, to soothe the natural anxiety of being around people again, I ask that we remain attentive to these rules to allow for a period of adjustment. Avoid the urge to jump onto a crowded elevator, keep a respectful distance when talking with others, and avoid eating meals together for the time being.
- If you are vaccinated and with others who are vaccinated, you may be in a closed conference room or in an office unmasked and without distance.
Finally, I would like to highlight an important historic date: on July 2, 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted, which banned employers from discrimination and outlawed segregation. I hope this serves as a reminder as to why we are working together to answer the call in creating sustainable, impactful changes within medicine.
Sincerely,
Jill A. RachBeisel, MD
Dr. Irving J. Taylor Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry
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The Department of Psychiatry Diversity Committee
Mark your calendars!
Date: July 29
Time: 12-1:30 pm
Title: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Dept. of Psychiatry: Our FY21 Purpose, Accomplishments, Lessons Learned, & FY22 Next Steps!
On July 29, we will provide an overview of our successes, which will include:
Inpatient personal care products
In May, we helped to identify the need for more diverse personal care products for our inpatients. We will be working with two local, minority-led companies as suppliers, with our C&A unit as a pilot site!
UMMS Community Conversation
Drs. Forrester, Gordon-Achebe, and Han moderated, "Not All Wounds Are Visible, A Community Conversation: Unburdening Racism, Injustice and Inequity to Create a Path Forward." This is the first step at direct community engagement. Find the YouTube here.
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Implementation Team
We will begin implementing diversity goals created from our needs assessments.
Teams Hub
Visit our Hub or email Dr. Forrester at aforrest@som.umaryland.edu.
The next Diversity Committee meeting will occur on Thurs., Aug. 26th at 4 pm. (We will not meet in July.) All are invited to attend via this Zoom link.
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Rachael Funk, LCSW-C (right), and Victoria Parson (left) coordinated the first Juneteenth Celebration for staff and clients of the Walter P. Carter Center building, Harbor City Services, and Carruthers/RA1SE clinics. The celebration included a Black Arts appreciation and mask-making area, photoshoot backdrop, food, and resource area. Staff brought in children’s books that celebrated Juneteenth, Black history, or Black joy to donate to Baltimore City public schools. View their presentation here, and thank you to all!
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ANNOUNCING THE CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY INPATIENT UNIT! |
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It's official! The Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Inpatient Unit at the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital is formally open, with many thanks to Division Director Dr. Sarah Edwards, along with Drs. Katrina Escuro, Mackenzie Sommerhalder, and Meenu Suman, as well as Kim Sadtler.
Dr. Edwards gave Channel 11 reporter Kim Dacey a tour, highlighting the unit as the first in Maryland that combines both clinical programming with architectural design for comprehensive, trauma-informed psychiatric care. View the full interview here, as well as one featured on WJZ 13 here.
The brand new unit features 16 patient beds for youth ages 5 to 17 years old, and reflects themes of an overnight camp with custom paper-cut murals, a Lego wall, sensory room, circadian lighting, and whimsical nooks and arches built into the walls. The virtual ribbon cutting ceremony was held on Tuesday, June 29, and can be watched below.
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Annual Tuerk Conference on Mental Health and Addiction Treatment: A Progressive Approach to Recovery |
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Date: Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021
Time: 7:30 am - 5 pm
The Division of Addiction Research and Treatment will sponsor reduced-rate registrations for Psychiatry faculty & staff. Please check your internal email!
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Annual Conference on Advancing School Mental Health
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KUDOS FOR 35 YEARS OF SERVICE! |
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On June 16, Amy Johnson of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) celebrated 35 years of dedicated service. During COVID, Amy never missed a day in the office and kept EAP moving forward. She is also known for her compassionate nature in connecting employees to resources. Lou Cohen, MD, EAP Medical Director, and Robert White, LCPC, Director of Behavioral Health, along with the rest of the team, would like to thank Amy for her years of service -- and hopefully, for 35 more years!
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Beshaun Davis, PhD, completed his doctoral studies at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, where he gained experience in clinical interventions focused on bolstering metacognition across the psychosis-spectrum. During graduate study, Dr. Davis completed a meta-analysis focused on the impact of clinic insight on quality of life. He then completed his predoctoral internship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, gaining experience in coordinated specialty care, inpatient assessment, neuropsychology, and forensic assessments. This led him to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Psychosis Network for Early Treatment or MAPNET. Dr. Davis’ current research interests focus on investigating real world adaptations to gold standard interventions for people experiencing early psychosis. He has a focus on pathways to care and treatment disengagement for people of color, and will be joining DPSR.
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Mark Kvarta, MD, PhD, is the inaugural Physician Scientist Training Program graduate, who formally joined us on July 1. While we have spotlighted Dr. Kvarta in past issues, we welcome him to the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center (MPRC), where he will be working 80% of the time, as well as to the Fayette Clinic.
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Adam Culbreth, PhD, of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center (MPRC), serves as PI for the NIH K23 grant, "Computational Mechanisms of Effort-Cost Decision-Making in Schizophrenia." The project spans from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2026 for $826,829, and aims to determine the psychological and neural mechanisms of effort-cost, decision-making impairment in people with schizophrenia through computational modeling techniques.
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Cindy Schaeffer, PhD, was recently awarded an NIMH “Fast Track” grant in partnership with the Evidence Based Practice Institute in Seattle, WA (Co-PI: Linda Dimeff, PhD; R44 MH126819-01). The 3-year, $2.4 million project, "iKinnect 2.0 for Juvenile Justice Involved Youth at Risk for Suicide," will expand upon its mobile phone app features to include tools to help parents and teens mitigate teen suicide risk, and will further test its efficacy.
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The Office of Medical Education awarded our faculty several honors that were based on student evaluations: |
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Ann Hackman, MD
Teaching Commendation for Pathophysiology and Therapeutics II
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Constance Lacap, DO
Distinguished Lecturer in Brain and Behavior
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Gloria Reeves, MD
Teaching Commendation for Brain and Behavior
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Research Day Winners
Drs. Jill RachBeisel and Gloria Reeves are delighted to announce the winners of this year's Trainee Poster Session:
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Poster Session: 1st prize
Chrislean Jun D. Botanas, PhD
"Effects of ketamine and (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine on anhedonia subtypes"
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Elevator Speech Competition
Crystal Han, MD
"Development of a Culturally Sensitive Asian American/Pacific Islander Curriculum for Child Psychiatry Trainees"
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Dezarie Moskal, PhD, also won second prize for her poster. Congratulations!
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The Division of Addiction Research and Treatment and its 1001 West Pratt Street University of Maryland Addiction Treatment Center has started its Summer Food Program -- Grab and Go. Last week, they provided 325 breakfast and lunch bags to their patients. Volunteers are needed for this effort, so please check your internal email! |
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Cultural Responsiveness and Equity in School Mental Health: Webinar Series
As part of a collaborative effort with the Danya Institute and Central East Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MHTTC), the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH) Cultural Responsiveness & Equity specialty track of the Annual Conference on Advancing School Mental Health is hosting two summer webinars:
These are facilitated by Drs. Dana Cunningham (top left), Brittany Patterson (top right), and Sylvia McCree-Huntley (bottom left), and Perrin Robinson (bottom right). You can view recordings of previous webinars on the NCSMH webinars page.
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Drs. Tiffany Beason (left) and Sam Reaves (right) presented, "Resilience in the Black/African American Community in the Context of Systemic Racism," at the Maryland Behavioral Health Administration annual conference on May 5th. Their workshop focused on an overview of the impacts of systemic racism, the Bronfenbrenner ecological framework, and resilience in the context of injustice.
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On April 22, Drs. Hinda Dubin presented a Grand Rounds, "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-informed Dialectical Behavior Therapy" at Spring Grove Hospital Center.
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The National Education Association and the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH) hosted "Aspiring Educators Mental Health Awareness Week," from May 3-7, which culminated with a roundtable discussion featuring Ashley Woods, LSCW-C.
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On May 1, Drs. Maria Puzanov, Michael Andrew Levy, and Seshagiri Rao Doddi (pictured left), presented the poster, "Early Detection of Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome in the Setting of Delirium," at the American Psychiatry Annual Meeting.
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On March 19, Seshagiri Doddi, MBBS (left), and Christopher Marano, MD (right), presented the poster, "Treatment of Refractory Status Epilepticus with Electroconvulsive Therapy: a Case Series Report," at the American Academy of Neurology meeting.
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On May 11, as part of Children’s Mental Health Awareness Month, Drs. Kris Scardamalia (left) and Sam Reaves (right) presented, "Supporting Children’s Emotional and Academic Readiness in Returning to the Classroom," in collaboration with the National Center for School Mental Health and the Family-Run Executive Director Leadership Organization (FREDLA).
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The Taghi Modaressi Center for Infant Study, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, is currently conducting a study to recruit mothers of young children who are dealing with opioid use (themselves or a family member). Females 18+ older with a child 0-5 years old can earn a $30 gift certificate for a 45-minute survey. Please contact Sabrina Malachi at (443) 615-1076 or smalachi@som.umaryland.edu. |
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Drs. Curtis Adams and Ann Hackman served as collaborators on the report by the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, "Roadmap to the Ideal Crisis System: Essential Elements, Measurable Standards and Best Practices for Behavioral Health Crisis Response." The full 200-page report focuses on improvements in structures, services, and processes, and can be found here.
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Drs. Mark Kvarta, Joshua Chiappelli, Eric Goldwaser, Peter Kochunov, Xioming Du, and Eliot Hong published the journal article, "Aberrant anterior cingulate processing of anticipated threat as a mechanism for psychosis," in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. Researchers used the anticipation of a mildly painful stimulus on subjects with schizophrenia who underwent functional neuroimaging and found deficits in the ventral anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain associated with psychosis and depression. The team hopes to expand and interrogate the role of this region in clinical depression symptoms. For the full read, click here.
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Dr. Sharon Hoover has presented at national meetings to support federal guidance on reopening of schools and addressing student mental health needs during COVID:
-Speaker for the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) to address social emotional supports for students
-Advisor to the School Behavioral Health Advisory Committee Expert Convening
-Speaker to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) National 988 and Crisis Learning Community to provide guidance on adapting the new 988 crisis delivery system for children and adolescents
-Plenary speaker and advisor to the Brookings Institute: Children’s and Young Adults Mental Health Workgroup
-Speaker for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network on the topic of school mental health during COVID-19
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