July 2022 Kudos
SAVE THE DATES
FACULTY DEVELOPMENT SEMINARS
Upcoming faculty development seminars, which will be held from 9:00-10:30a, Zoom link:
Wednesday October 12, 2022 – Crucial Conversations Part 2 – This seminar will focus on navigating crucial conversations with supervisors and senior leaders.
WRITING GROUPS: UPCOMING
The Writing Group is the 1st Wednesday of every month from 8:00-9:00am. The next meeting is Wednesday August 3, 2022 and will be on Zoom.
SPOTLIGHTS
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: Ashley Smith, PA-C
Ashley Smith is a board-certified physician assistant, currently serving full time on the Psychiatry Consultation-Liaison Service at Grady Hospital. She provides continuity of care Monday through Friday to both patients, as well as medical/surgical teams. She provides supervision to various levels of learners including medical students, PA students and residents.
In addition to her role on the CL psychiatry service, Ashley provides additional support within Grady Health System. She is an active member of the hospital ethics committee. She recently joined the spinal cord interdisciplinary team who meets weekly to discuss spinal cord injury cases within the acute care setting.
Ashley most enjoys the ability to advocate for a specific population, sometimes unrepresented, and advocate for their medical care, as well as for their overall needs. She enjoys working with other disciplines throughout the hospital to provide quality care for individuals of various needs.
Much of Ashley’s career trajectory has been established by specific patients who lacked adequate representation, especially late in their life and/or clinical course. Through various cases she found a passion for managing complex patients with mental health needs in the acute care setting. She has had the opportunity to present to physician assistants and hospitalists at national meetings.
Ashley’s goals include ongoing advocacy for those who are unable to advocate for themselves, as well as teach the next generation of physicians and PAs to care for vulnerable individuals.
Outside of Grady, much of Ashley’s involvement is around her family including her husband, children and dog. Their two daughters, 8 and 3, keep them busy with every day extracurricular activities. She has been fortunate to serve as a small group leader for middle school girls at her church, which is a lot of fun and very eye opening! Much of her free time is spent recharging to do it all again the next day. She is very fortunate to teach her two girls what she learns every day, which includes meeting people halfway and advocating for those who need help. She is alsonactively seeking new hobbies.
ADJUNCT FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: Joseph Browning, MD
Joseph Browning has the best job in the world. When people with mental illness get arrested, they're often too sick to function in court. That's when he gets called in to (1) certify the person is incompetent to stand trial, and then (2) treat that person in the hospital to get them to where they can understand what's going on. He gets to go to court all the time and testify about people who are incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity.
Since Joseph finished his forensic fellowship at Emory in 2009, he has spent one day a week teaching Emory forensic fellows about competency to stand trial, criminal responsibility and civil commitment at Georgia Regional Hospital. The Georgia Regional part of the forensic fellowship has consistently been one of the most popular sites for the fellows, and they get a lot of great experience there.
What Joseph enjoys most about his role as an adjunct faculty member is teaching. Doing forensics is fun, and it requires a unique skillset trainees may not get in a general residency program. Court-ordered evaluation of a person brings with it a host of challenges that are different from providing psychiatric treatment.
Joseph is a proud West Virginian who grew up an hour away from the nearest stoplight. If you stand still long enough, he will tell you more than you want to know about pepperoni rolls, Blenko Glass, the Homer Laughlin China Company and the Mountaineers.
STAFF SPOTLIGHT: Audrey Kelly-Rhine
Audrey Kelly-Rhine is the Sr. Administrative Assistant directly supporting the chair of psychiatry with calendar management, meeting coordination, including management of virtual meetings, taking/transcribing minutes, scheduling faculty interviews, managing the appointment/promotion process for A&P committee, POC for department communications and department listserv, chair approval coordination of letters of support and chair signatures for HR forms, diplomas, grants, adjunct approval letters, guest travel and lodging coordination, corporate and P-card expensing, scheduling Career Conference Performance Reports (CCPR) meetings and recently been added as the POC for grand rounds
Outside of Emory, Audrey is the event and gathering planner for her family, planning family trips and gatherings. She is also a wife, mother and grandmother and spending time with her family is what she loves to do most of all.
What Audrey enjoys most as an administrative professional is assisting everyone in the department. She gets to do a little of everything and trusted to work independently to get things done. In her current role, she gets the most satisfaction from working with the promotions process. Although the process is daunting, when all of the work is done and the promotion is granted, she feels a sense of pride in knowing she played a small role in getting this accomplished. She loves to see others succeed.
There are several key highlights in Audrey’s career trajectory at Emory. She worked in various roles for Emory Healthcare for about 33 years and transferred to the university in 2015. Transferring to the university was one of the biggest highlights for her, as she has grown tremendously in her role and responsibilities while working for the Brain Health Center.
Audrey’s future plans are to continue living her life in her purpose. To be the best version of herself, the best example to her family, and encourage and uplift others.
In her spare time, Audrey loves spending time with family and friends and rooting for her favorite football team (Atlanta Falcons). She also loves to attend live concerts and plays and will be going to New York at the end of the month and experience her first Broadway musical.
TRAINEE SPOTLIGHT: Joel Eisenberg, MD
Joel Eisenberg currently serve as a chief resident at Grady. What he most enjoys is working with newer trainees to help them develop their skills and fund of knowledge.
Joel attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, prior to attending University of South Florida where he graduated with a degree in cell and molecular biology with a minor in philosophy. He was in the SELECT program at USF for medical school, where he did his third and fourth year rotations at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, PA. He was inducted into AOA in his final year of medical school.
Joel’s plan for the future will be taking a position at Lehigh Valley Health Network as a consult-liaison psychiatrist after he completes training at Emory.
Joel is newly married and lives with his wife Kaela in Decatur. Outside of work, he enjoys cooking, trying new restaurants, watching movies, playing board games and weightlifting.
WELCOME NEW FACULTY
Michael J. Dvorscek, PhD – Michael J. Dvorscek completed his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011. He completed his internship and residency at the Atlanta VA Medical Center and is currently a General Mental Health psychologist for the Atlanta VA Medical System. He conducts diagnostic evaluations, psychological testing and individual and group psychotherapy with diverse range of patients. Dr. Dvorscek is the practicum training coordinator for his clinic, and a consultant for the local Vet Centers. His professional interests include multicultural and gender issues in psychology, psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to psychotherapy and supervision and training. He will be helping Emory’s trainees develop their clinical assessment, diagnostic/case conceptualization and clinical intervention skills.
Geoff Goodman, PhD, ABPP – Geoff Goodman is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Emory School of Medicine and Associate Professor of Theology in the Candler School of Theology. From 1999 to 2022, he was Associate Professor of Psychology in the Long Island University (LIU) Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program, New York. He is a licensed clinical and certified school psychologist with 30 years of experience in private practice in New York, treating youth and adults. Geoff holds board certifications in both clinical psychology and psychoanalysis by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP), holds certifications in both adult and child and adolescent psychoanalysis, is a Fellow of the International Psychoanalytical Association (FIPA), and is a Senior Fellow at the College of Research Fellows of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA). He is also a Certified Sex Therapist (CST), Certified Sex Addiction Therapist and Supervisor (CSAT-S), Certified Multiple Addiction Therapist and Supervisor (CMAT-S), Certified Partner Trauma Therapist and Supervisor (CPTT-S), and Registered Play Therapist and Supervisor (RPT-S). Dr. Goodman authored articles on the development of psychopathology and psychotherapy process in high-risk infants, children, and adults, and has presented internationally at conferences and workshops. He published The internal world and attachment (2002) and three more books in 2010: Transforming the internal world and attachment (Vols. 1 and 2) and Therapeutic attachment relationships. In 2006, LIU awarded him the Trustees Award for Scholarly Achievement for his first book, and in 2016, he received the Phi Delta Kappa Lifetime Research Award and the David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2013 and 2014, Geoff published two more books: Rural community libraries in Africa: Challenges and impacts (with wife Valeda F. Dent & Michael Kevane; IGI Global) and his first children’s book, Daddy’s secret cedar chest. A second children’s book, Junk in the Trunk, was published in 2022. In 2013, he was awarded the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship by the US Department of State and spent eight months in 2014 establishing and evaluating a play-based intervention program to facilitate the development of school readiness skills in preschool children in two rural village libraries in Uganda. He has taken seven students to Uganda, two of whom completed doctoral dissertations based on data they collected there. He is the former Coordinator of the LIU Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program Applied Child Research Team; former Chair of the Child, Adolescent, and Family Therapy Research (CAFTR) Special Interest Group of the international Society for Psychotherapy Research; and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Rural Village Libraries Research Network. He is the former Director of the LIU Children’s Institute for Play Therapy and Research (CIPTAR) and the former Director of the Norbert Freedman Center for Psychoanalytic Research at IPTAR, serving on its Board of Directors. Geoff lives in Druid Hills with his wife Valeda, daughter Carlyn, and Bengal cat, Sulwe.
Benson Ku, MD – Benson Ku is an attending psychiatrist in the Achieving Recovery through Resilience, Optimism, and Wellness clinic at Grady, and provides clinical care for young adults experiencing first-episode psychosis. His research focuses on the impact of neighborhood characteristics on conversion to psychosis among youth at high-risk, which provides a novel integration of multiple levels of investigation including public health, neuroscience, and developmental studies in humans to discover novel targets for intervention both at the individual and neighborhood levels to prevent or mitigate psychosis. He completed his residency and fellowship training in psychiatry at Emory in 2022 after receiving his medical degree at Hofstra. He grew up in Queens, NY and enjoys swimming, hiking, and exploring new places.
Bojan Slavnic, DO – After completing his fellowship training at Emory in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, Bojan is joining the faculty and will serve as Medical Director of Emory John’s Creek Hospital C-L Psychiatry service. Bojan is looking forward to beginning this new journey and he hopes to build a fulfilling career within the field of C-L Psychiatry. Bojan was born in Yugoslavia and came to the states at the age of 10, where he considers Chicago as his second hometown. He obtained his Bachelor’s in Psychology from NEIU and completed his medical education at Midwestern University. Prior to coming to Emory for his fellowship training, he completed his general psychiatry residency at Adena Health System in Ohio. Clinically, Bojan’s areas of interest include psychomotor syndromes, neurodegenerative disorders, frontal lobe syndromes and somatoform disorders. He also looks forward to exploring the different service models within C-L psychiatry, including the proactive inpatient and integrated outpatient C-L services. On a conceptual level, Bojan enjoys reading and learning about the lingering questions on topics such as consciousness, large scale brain networks, our place in the seemingly infinite cosmos, and the Fermi Paradox. To balance the demands of working daily life, Bojan enjoys hiking, weightlifting, producing music, and watching films.
Meredith Williamson, PsyD – Meredith Williamson is a clinical psychologist who started with the Atlanta VA in 2016 and works in the Substance Abuse Treatment Program. Since that time, she has also enjoyed service as a supervisor for psychology interns completing psychological assessments. She is a member of the diversity in education committee whose goal is to promote multicultural competence within the psychology training program. She has done this through cofacilitating a multicultural seminar that is required for all psychology interns training at the VA. Meredith also has a special interest in Gambling Disorder and has given several presentations to VA staff, trainees, and residents.
DISC UPDATES
National Disability Independence Day – Erica Marshall-Lee, PhD, Assistant Professor – July 26 is a federally recognized day celebrating National Disability Independence Day, commemorating the 1990 signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by former President George Bush. 2022 is the 32nd anniversary of the ADA. This law makes discrimination against people with disabilities illegal and ensures access to equitable employment, education, and transportation, among others. The ADA is divided into five sections: Employment, Public Services: State and Local Government, Public Accommodations and Services, Telecommunications, and Miscellaneous Provisions. Prior to adopting the ADA, people with disabilities were not guaranteed reasonable accommodations. For example, before ADA, interventions such as ramps for mobility, braille in public access areas, and audible prompts and were scarce. This day is significant for individuals differently abled in visible and not so visible ways. I have an underlying medical condition, about which I am extremely vocal, that while not significantly visible at this point, may become so in the future. It highlights for me how our society chooses to ignore or avoid acknowledging the experience of those in our world with valuable contributions merely as a result of their perceived abilities or lack thereof. National Disability Independence Day highlights the accomplishments and importance of people who are differently abled and I am thankful for that.
WOMEN FACULTY SUBCOMMITTEE
None reported
WELLNESS RESOURCES
The Department’s Wellness Committee Summer Field Trip will take place on Sunday, June 26 at 3:00 pm with a visit to the Civil Rights Museum.
Challenges with Healthy Emory are ongoing - the Sharecare app is the platform and incentive dollars are available!
Operation Eat Right encourages you to improve your nutrition and boost your well-being using Healthy Emory Connect!
Resources from Healthy Emory and a link below to the ACPH.
- Benefits
- Rewards
- Career
- Learning
- Wellness
- Work Life
- Employee Assistance
- Employee Assistance – Physician Wellbeing Conference
Healthy Emory resources including the Sharecare platform for Move More, Refresh from Stress and more! Open to University and Healthcare Employees
Healthy Emory Connect | Emory University | Atlanta GA
Wellbeing and mental health support for Emory University Employees Faculty Staff Assistance Program and for Emory Healthcare Employees username EHC (800 327 2251)
Graduate Medical Education Well-being Resident Well Being | Emory School of Medicine
International Conference on Physician Health (alternates years with American Conference) International Conference on Physician Health™ | American Medical Association (ama-assn.org)
Office of Well- Being established for Woodruff Health Sciences
FACULTY KUDOS
Major Leadership Appointments, Activities and Achievements
Jordan Cattie was accepted into the IOCDF's Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Action Council.
Marianne Celano received the SOM Clinical Distinction of Eminent Psychologist.
Adriana Hermida was promoted to the rank of professor, and received the SOM Clinical Distinction of Eminent Physician.
Erica Marshall-Lee was elected chair-elect of the SMI-SED section of the Division of Psychologists in Public Service (Division 18) of the American Psychological Association.
Ann Schwartz received the SOM Clinical Distinction of Eminent Physician.
Research
Cai H, Bai W, Liu H, Chen X, Qi H, Liu R, Cheung T, Su Z, Lin J, Tang YL, Jackson T, Zhang QE. Xiang YT. Network analysis of depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents during the later stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Translational Psychiatry, 2022, doi.org/lO.1038/s41398-022-01838-9
Fani N, White D, Marshall-Lee E and Hampton-Anderson J. (2022). Antiracist Practice in Psychiatry: Principles and Recommendations. FOCUS, 20(3), 270-276
Goodman G, Calderón A, & Midgley N. (in press). Expert clinicians’ prototypes of an adolescent treatment: Common and unique factors among four treatment models. Psychotherapy Research.
Han X. Li H, Tang YL. Palfrey J, Zhu J. (2022). The Association of State-level Drug and Opioid Overdose Deaths with The Capacity of Behavioral Health Professionals in the United States. Health & Social Care in the Community. doi: 10.1111/hsc.13862
Kosaraju S, Galatzer-Levy I, Schultebraucks K, Winters S, Hinrichs R, Reddi PJ, Maples-Keller JL, Hudak L, Michopoulos V, Jovanovic T, Ressler KJ, Allen JW, & Stevens JS. (2022). Associations among civilian mild traumatic brain injury with loss of consciousness, posttraumatic stress disorder symptom trajectories, and structural brain volumetric data. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 1– 14.
Li M, Xia L, Yang Y, Zhang L, Zhang S, Liu T, Liu Y, Kaslow NJ, Jiang F, Tang YL, Liu H. (2022). Depression, anxiety, stress and their associations with quality of life in a nationwide sample of psychiatrists in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.881408
LoParo D, Fonseca AC, Matos APM, Craighead WE. (2022). Anxiety and Depression from Childhood to Young Adulthood: Trajectories and Risk Factors. Child Psychiatry and Human Development.
Wingo TS, Gerasimov ES, Canon SM, Lah JJ, Levey AI, Wingo AP. (2022) Alzheimer's disease genetic burden is associated with mid-life depression among persons with normal cognition. Alzheimers Dement. doi: 10.1002/alz.12716.
Wingo AP, Vattathil SM, Liu J, Fan W, Cutler DJ, Levey AI, Schneider JA, Bennett DA, Wingo TS. (2022). LDL cholesterol is associated with higher AD neuropathology burden independent of APOE. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. doi: 10.1136/jnnp-2021-328164.
Yang Y, Zhang L, Li M, Wu X, Xia L, Liu DY, Liu T, Liu Y, Jing F, Tang YL, Liu H, Kaslow NJ. (2022). Turnover intention and its associated factors among psychiatrists in 41 tertiary psychiatric hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 2022, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.899358
Honors, Awards, Rankings
The following individuals received departmental awards.
- Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award: Junior Faculty – David Goldsmith
- Distinguished Service Award: National/International – Robert Cotes
- Distinguished Clinician Award (Emory Healthcare) – Kandi Schmidt
- Distinguished Clinician Award (Grady Health System) – Ashley Smith
- Distinguished Clinician Award (Atlanta VAMC) – Michelle Casimir
- Distinguished Mentor Award: Science – Rachel Hershenberg
- Distinguished Mentor Award: Service and Education – Kallio Hunnicutt-Ferguson
- Nadine J. Kaslow Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award – Noriel Lim
Geoffrey Goodman (1) Has been board certified in Psychoanalysis through the American Board of Professional Psychology. (2) Winner of the Edith Sabshin Teaching Award, presented at the meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Dorian Lamis was selected the recipient for the APA Division 18 Public Service Early Career Award.
Sheila Rauch and STRONG STAR-CAP Investigators have been selected for the 2022 Military Health System Research Symposium Research Team Award for Academia.
Mar Sanchez (1) Invited to serve as the Society for Neuroscience representative, Board of Directors, American Brain Coalition (ABC) for 2022-2025. (2) Co-Editor, Special Issue, “Puberty and the Adolescent Brain”, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (2022)
Presentations
Goodman (1) Goodman G, Calderón A, & Midgley N. (2022, July). Expert clinicians’ prototypes of an adolescent treatment: Common and unique factors among four treatment models. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, Denver, CO.; (2) Goodman G, Youniss A, Blum B, & Dent V. (2022, July). Understanding social causality as a mediator of the relation between adherence to mentalizing principles and autism symptoms in the treatment of a 6-year-old boy. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, Denver, CO.; (3) Blum B, Fastman M, & Goodman G. (2022, August). Perceptions of mental illness in the wake of mental illness revelations by athletes. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Minneapolis, MN.; and (4) Youniss A, Blum B, Barsch A, Diamond M, Jacob J, Johnson S, Kraiem E, Linzer M, Perlman T, Ross R, Scaccio M, Tannenbaum A, Whelan T, & Goodman, G. (2022, August). Complexity of representations as a moderator between therapeutic alliance and autism symptoms. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Minneapolis, MN.
Mar Sanchez was the keynote speaker at the Colorado State University Graduate Program annual conference.
Aliza Wingo was invited to co-chair and present at a symposium organized by the National Institute of Aging, titled Understanding the Mechanisms of the Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Alzheimer's Disease. 5th NIA-AA Symposium - Enabling Precision Medicine for AD Through Open Science, as well as being invited to give the “Successful Merit Awardee Presentation” at a symposium organized by the Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Workgroup for Underrepresented Early Career Investigators.
Media
Jeffrey Rakofsky (1) WebMD – Promising Research for Bipolar Treatment.
Larry Young (1) Spectrum – DNA May Hold Clues to Oxytocin Levels in Autistic People.
ADJUNCT KUDOS
Paul Earley received the department’s Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Member Award.
Freitag S, Mekawi Y, Badio KS, Holmes EV, Youngblood A, & Lamis DA. (2022). The roles of culture, race, and ethnicity in suicide. In M. Pompili (Ed.), Suicide risk assessment and prevention. Springer Nature.
Yassar Kanawati and the Syrian American Medical Society was awarded the Freedom Award by the International Rescue Committee.
Nisha Shah graduated from the EUPI’s Adult Psychoanalytic Training Program.
Monika Stojek was board certified in Behavioral & Cognitive Psychology through the American Board of Professional Psychology.
TRAINEE KUDOS
Petri JM, Cullum KA and Hunnicutt-Ferguson K.(2022). Exposure Therapy for Multiple Anxiety Targets: Clinical Decisions Guided by Functional Assessment. FOCUS, 20(3), 307-308
PERSONAL KUDOS
David Goldsmith and Megan Lawley welcomed a daughter Ryan Josephine, born on Friday, July 22 at 12:37am.