This is the Winter 2015 edition of Mind Matters, a quarterly publication of the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute.
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1 WINTER 2015 - A PUBLICATION OF UAMS PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE Jeffrey L. Clothier, M.D., the Psychiatric Research Institute’s medical director and executive vice chair of the UAMS Department of Psychiatry, was named the inaugural recipient of the G. Richard Smith, M.D., Distinguished Chair in Personalized Medicine at a ceremony held Oct. 6 at UAMS. “Personalized or precision medicine allows us to seek out our patients’ pain, to determine the cause and contributors of their suffering,” said Clothier at the ceremony, which was attended by a number of UAMS dignitaries as well as many of Clothier’s colleagues and family members. “Personalized care takes a more physiological approach to treating the patient,” explained Clothier, a longtime advocate of genomic testing. “It allows us to provide care of the right kind at the right time with the right technology.” Clothier expressed his gratitude for the support he has received since coming to UAMS in 1990 and the opportunity to teach some of the brightest minds to come through UAMS. at included Kent McKelvey, M.D., director of Cancer Genetics Services at the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. McKelvey used words like honest, trustworthy, trusting and forgiving to describe his former teacher and mentor. “Whenever we had a tough case, Jeff used to say, ‘We’ll all know when we get to heaven,’ which also shows that he’s an optimist,” said McKelvey. Amy Clothier Grooms, M.D., Clothier’s daughter and a third-year resident in Psychiatry at Brown University in Providence, R.I., remembered following her father around the hospital as a young girl. “One time he got called in to the hospital and his long white coat was flowing behind him like a superhero’s cape,” said Grooms. “He was running so fast and I kept asking him to slow down. He said, ‘at’s what you have to do, I learned that as a resident.’ So I made it my mission to keep up with him. “You’ve always been my hero, Dad. One of the best pieces of advice my dad ever gave me and my brother was to do what you love, and the rest will come later. is award will make such a huge difference in helping you take care of patients, which is what you really enjoy doing.” Smith, the former dean of the UAMS College of Medicine and the first director of the Psychiatric Research Institute, thanked several long-time supporters of the facility, including Patricia Bailey, Helen Porter and Vic Jacuzzi, for their contributions to the endowed chair. An endowed chair is the highest academic honor that can be bestowed by a university on its faculty. A chair can honor the memory of a loved one or honor a person’s accomplishments, such as with Smith, now a professor in the College of Medicine Departments of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine and the College of Public Health. An endowed distinguished chair is supported with gifts of $1.5 million or more. e chair holder uses the interest proceeds for research, teaching or service activities. “e funds you donated will go a long way toward alleviating some of the pain and suffering of our patients,” said a visibly moved Smith. “It’s a great honor to be a small part of this journey. And to Jeff, I am thankful to you for your friendship and to call you a colleague.” Clothier is presented with a medallion recognizing him as the holder of the G. Richard Smith, M.D., Distinguished Chair in Personalized Medicine by the doctor the chair is named for, former College of Medicine Dean G. Richard Smith (left) and UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn. Clothier Invested As First Holder of Chair in Personalized Medicine
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winter 2015 - A PUBL iCAt iOn OF UAMS PSYCHiAtriC reSeArCH inSt itUte
Jeffrey L. Clothier, M.D., the Psychiatric Research Institute’s medical director and executive vice chair of the UAMS Department of Psychiatry, was named the inaugural recipient of the G. Richard Smith, M.D., Distinguished Chair in Personalized Medicine at a ceremony held Oct. 6 at UAMS.
“Personalized or precision medicine allows us to seek out our patients’ pain, to determine the cause and contributors of their suffering,” said Clothier at the ceremony, which was attended by a number of UAMS dignitaries as well as many of Clothier’s colleagues and family members.
“Personalized care takes a more physiological approach to treating the patient,” explained Clothier, a longtime advocate of genomic testing. “It allows us to provide care of the right kind at the right time with the right technology.”
Clothier expressed his gratitude for the support he has received since coming to UAMS in 1990 and the opportunity to teach some of the brightest minds to come through UAMS. That included Kent McKelvey, M.D., director of Cancer Genetics Services at the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute.
McKelvey used words like honest, trustworthy, trusting and forgiving to describe his former teacher and mentor. “Whenever we had a tough case, Jeff used to say, ‘We’ll all know when we get to heaven,’ which also shows that he’s an optimist,” said McKelvey.
Amy Clothier Grooms, M.D., Clothier’s daughter and a third-year resident in Psychiatry at Brown University in Providence, R.I., remembered following her father around the hospital as a young girl. “One time he got called in to the hospital and his long white coat was flowing behind him like a superhero’s cape,” said Grooms. “He was running so fast and I kept asking him to slow down. He said, ‘That’s what you have to do, I learned that as a resident.’ So I made it my mission to keep up with him.
“You’ve always been my hero, Dad. One of the best pieces of advice my dad ever gave me and my brother was to do what you love, and the rest will come later. This award will make such a huge difference in helping you take care of patients, which is what you really enjoy doing.”
Smith, the former dean of the UAMS College of Medicine and the first director of the Psychiatric Research Institute, thanked several long-time supporters of the facility, including Patricia Bailey, Helen Porter and Vic Jacuzzi, for their contributions to the endowed chair.
An endowed chair is the highest academic honor that can be bestowed by a university on its faculty. A chair can honor the memory of a loved one or honor a person’s accomplishments, such as with Smith, now a professor in the College of Medicine Departments of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine and the College of Public Health.
An endowed distinguished chair is supported with gifts of $1.5 million or more. The chair holder uses the interest proceeds for research, teaching or service activities.
“The funds you donated will go a long way toward alleviating some of the pain and suffering of our patients,” said a visibly moved Smith. “It’s a great honor to be a small part of this journey. And to Jeff, I am thankful to you for your friendship and to call you a colleague.”
Clothier is presented with a medallion recognizing him as the holder of the G. Richard Smith, M.D., Distinguished Chair in Personalized Medicine by the doctor the chair is named for, former College of Medicine Dean G. Richard Smith (left) and UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn.
Clothier Invested As First Holder of Chair in Personalized Medicine
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Teresa Hudson, Pharm.D., Ph.D., was named director of the Psychiatric Research Institute’s Division of Health Services Research (DHSR) in October following a year-long national search. An associate professor of Psychiatry with secondary appointments in the College of Pharmacy and the Graduate School, Hudson replaced former director John Fortney, Ph.D.,
who accepted a position with the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Hudson earned her B.S. in Pharmacy and her Pharm.D. from the St. Louis College of Pharmacy and her Ph.D. in Health Systems and Services Research from the UAMS Graduate School. She served as associate director of the VA Center for Mental Healthcare and Outcomes Research (CeMHOR), located at the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System (CAVHS), since 2007. She is also a past chair of the CAVHS Institutional Review Board and a past President of the Arkansas Association of Health System Pharmacists.
Hudson has almost 20 years of experience in health services research and has served as principal investigator on grants funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), the VA Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI), the VA Health Services Research and Development Service (HSR&D), the South Central Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), and several pharmaceutical companies and private foundations.
Hudson Takes Position of DHSR Director
Margaret Weiss, M.D., Ph.D., FRCP(C), a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, will assume the position of director of the UAMS Department of Psychiatry’s Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry on Jan. 1.
Weiss takes over for Peter Jensen, M.D., who has served as interim director of the division since December 2014. Jensen will continue to remain a member of the Department of Psychiatry’s faculty while serving as president and CEO of the REACH (Resource for Advancing Children’s Health) Institute, a federally chartered non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that children and families have access to the latest scientifically proven, high-quality interventions for mental health problems. Jensen is in the process of establishing a regional site for REACH at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, home to the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Weiss is currently the director of research for the Division of Child Psychiatry at UBC. She earned her bachelor's degree in Biology and History at Brandeis University, her master's degree and Ph.D. in history of science at Harvard University in Boston, and her medical degree at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Weiss Named Child and Adolescent Director
Winter is upon us, and it seems like only yesterday that we were thinking that the heat of summer would never end. Maybe it’s because we’ve been so busy here at PRI that we haven’t had time to notice the changes going on outside the building, what with all that’s going on inside the building.
Two very important leadership roles were recently filled here at PRI. Teresa Hudson, Ph.D.,
Pharm.D., will replace John Fortney, Ph.D., as the director of our Division of Health Services Research. Dr. Hudson has been with PRI for several years and specializes in substance abuse research. Secondly, Margaret Weiss, M.D., will be stepping in as director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry on Jan. 1. You can read more about these new positions inside this edition of Mind Matters.
Speaking of new faces, we recently added two new faculty members to our clinical team. Brent Lawlis, a former chief resident in the UAMS Department of Psychiatry, came on board in October. Brent most recently served as the lead correctional psychiatrist at the Oahu Community Correctional Center and an assistant clinical professor at the University of Hawaii’s John A. Burns School of Medicine. His primary responsibility will be seeing patients on the adult inpatient unit. Stephanie Kremer, Ph.D., who joined us in November, is a clinical health psychologist who will be seeing patients in our Walker Family Clinic. Stephanie was in private practice before joining our faculty as an assistant professor.
Our younger faculty members continue to impress me with their diligence and their ability to expand their work in new, exciting areas. Shona Ray-Griffith, M.D., an assistant professor in our Women’s Mental Health Program, was awarded a Young Investigator Grant by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in August. The two-year grant will be used to study whether greater exposure to acetaminophen in the womb corresponds with higher rates of psychiatric illness among mothers, greater exposure to medications as a whole, and ultimately higher rates of attention disorders. Michael Cucciare, Ph.D., of our Division of Health Services Research, meanwhile, in October began work on a multi-site research study funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs that will focus on the effectiveness of a particular form of therapy in reducing the rates of criminal behavior among veterans. Both studies hold great promise and should be instrumental in addressing very serious problems in our country.
I’d like to take this time to wish all of our friends a happy and healthy holiday season and all the best in the coming New Year.
Best wishes,
Pedro L. Delgado, M.D.Director, Psychiatric Research Institute
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A number of studies have shown that yoga, a system of exercises based on Hindu philosophy, can help patients struggling with mental and physical
problems. Researchers at the Psychiatry Department of Islamic Azad University in Iran in 2009 found that participating in a
two-month yoga class can significantly reduce symptoms in women with
anxiety disorders. Another study, published in 2006, showed that practicing yoga and meditation
as a means to manage and relieve stress helps individuals overcome
other comorbidities associated with diseases and leads to increased quality
of life.More than 20 million people in the United States practice yoga,
according to a 2012 survey, and its calming approach to
exercise was just one of the reasons Kimberly Smith, a
recreational therapist at the Psychiatric Research Institute, began holding
weekly sessions for patients on PRI’s women’s inpatient unit involving yoga.
“I’ve wanted to do this for years, to use a holistic approach to care,” says Smith, who brings
the patients to the newly opened Donna and Senator Percy Malone Healing Garden each week for sessions lasting from 20 minutes to an hour. “I wanted to utilize the garden in a productive, effective and transforming way. We could have done this up on the unit (located on the fifth floor of PRI), but the garden is better. Atmosphere makes a difference in the energy of the people participating.”
Smith, who has been practicing yoga for 16 years, is aware that not all patients are equipped to handle some of the more difficult positions. “Safety is number one, it always will be,” says Smith, who is currently studying to be a certified instructor in hatha, a form of yoga that involves slow-paced stretching along with simple breathing exercises. “We’ve done some modifications, like using a chair for those who can’t stand for a long period. We’re adjusting to meet their physical needs.”
Nancy Mitchell, RN, a nurse on the women’s inpatient
unit, says that even some of the staff have taken part in the training exercises. “It gives them a little rest and relaxation away from the job,” says Mitchell. “It also creates a shared bond between them and the patients.”
“We all need that, we sometimes forget about that as caregivers,” adds Smith.
“The patients have been very enthusiastic about the class. They like being outside on the grass, in the fresh air. They come back to the unit refreshed, asking when they can do it again,” says Mitchell.
“There has been a significant amount of research on the positive effects of aerobic exercise and yoga on mental health,” says Betty Everett, a PRI psychologist. “Aerobic exercise may reduce the stress response system so the body is not as negatively impacted by stress, or perhaps it serves as a different focus or distraction from mental anguish, or helps increase feelings of self-efficacy and increases self-esteem. Yoga can help give the person a more flexible approach to stress in the body, mind, and spirit.”
The serenity of the surroundings and the sense of freedom that comes with working out in the garden has inspired Smith as well as her students. “The healing garden is a marvelous space. Everything about it is wonderful. The chance to use that space as a therapeutic area is very liberating.”
Stretching Out, Not Stressing OutStaff Taking Holistic Approach to Treating Patients by Incorporating Yoga in Garden
PRI recreational therapist Kimberly Smith practices a yoga move in the Donna and Senator Percy Malone Healing Garden.
PRI psychologist Dr. Terry Kramer, Ph.D., (left) discusses the problems trauma can cause with a group of Columbian immigrants during an informal session held at PRI Sept. 15. Kramer was assisted in the hour-long session by UAMS translator Mariella Hernandez (right). The meeting was organized by Little Rock immigration attorney Tom Travis in an effort to demonstrate situations the immigrants might have undergone during their attempts to become U.S. citizens.
Talking About Trauma
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Information on GivingBetty Tucker, J.D., Senior Development Director of PRI (501) 526-8134 or [email protected].
Mind Matters is published by the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute in partnership with UAMS Communications & Marketing. Tim Taylor, Editor. Designed by UAMS Creative Services.
Brenda Booth’s legacy at the Psychiatric Research Institute is more than her work as a research scientist or substance abuse specialist. Booth, who retired in October after 23 years at UAMS, was to many of her colleagues a nurturing mentor and friend.
The former director of PRI’s Division of Health Services Research, Booth joined UAMS in 1992 as part of a division then headed by G. Richard Smith, M.D., PRI’s former
director. A veteran investigator from Iowa City, Iowa’s Veterans Affairs program, she soon undertook a massive research project looking into the impact psychological disorders had on the outcomes of medical and surgical patients at hospitals in Little Rock, Indianapolis and Ann Arbor, Mich.
In 1995, she became the primary investigator in what was at the time the nation’s largest observational study of at-risk drinkers in rural settings. The six-state survey focused on long-term outcomes of alcoholism in an effort to determine which subjects were more likely to seek treatment.
Booth replaced Smith as head of the Division of Health Services Research in 2002 when he became chairman of the UAMS Department of Psychiatry. A year later, she received the largest grant of its kind to be awarded a UAMS researcher, a $7 million allocation from the National Institutes of Health to study cocaine and methamphetamine use in rural communities. The study lasted seven years and led to numerous publications and insights into the treatment of substance abuse in rural areas.
“We found that, on average, alcohol and drug use does go down after time,” says
Booth. “The scientific question is, does it go down because they are participating in a study or because we got people thinking about their using of drugs and alcohol. We
also found that there is not a whole lot of difference between rural and
urban users. We thought that rural users were less likely to get treatment because it is less available to them but as it turns out, very few (rural substance users) got treatment
because they simply didn’t want to do it.”
Booth’s work on rural substance abuse continues to live on at PRI as young research scientists explore the data she compiled. She admits that it is easier to attract research staff from other parts of the country to UAMS with a modern, state-of-the-art facility like PRI. “We were the only research division in Psychiatry when I started,” says Booth, who has seen divisions like the Brain Imaging Research Center, the Center for Addiction Research and the Women’s Mental Health Program develop at PRI during her career. “Before, we were
at various locations scattered around the city. PRI is a great recruiting tool.”
Booth estimates that she received $10 million in funding on studies in which she was the principal investigator and another $10 million on projects in which she was co-principal investigator while at UAMS. She also published 218 articles in research journals during that period.
Many of the researchers Booth helped recruit to the UAMS Department of Psychiatry over the last two decades have grown to become integral members of PRI’s faculty. Their work in the years to come will stand as a lasting contribution by Booth, who served as a mentor for her replacement in DHSR, Teresa Hudson, Pharm.D., Ph.D.
“I’ve done a lot of mentoring over the years,” says Booth, who plans to spend her newfound freedom traveling, including a hiking trip to Arizona and an outing in Hawaii. “It’s been very satisfying, getting to work with people like Geoff Curran, Terry Kramer, Jeff Pyne and Rick Owen. I’ve gotten so much enjoyment out of their success.”
