Grady Memorial Hospital

The Department of Psychiatry at Grady Memorial Hospital provides mental health care to people living in central Fulton County as well as the surrounding region. It serves as the center for emergency and inpatient psychiatric services for the metropolitan region and provides outpatient services and an array of comprehensive community mental health programs for adults.

The department is a key training site for the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of the Emory University School of Medicine and is led by Dr. Gray Norquist, Professor and Vice-Chair at Emory. In addition, it serves as a training site for the Morehouse School of Medicine Adult Psychiatry training program. There are approximately 29 Emory faculty members and 7 Morehouse School of Medicine faculty on staff to oversee the work of approximately 26 residents, 8 psychology doctoral interns and postdoctoral residents, medical students from Emory and Morehouse, social work students and various other trainees.

This service includes the only 24-hour Psychiatric Emergency Service (PES) in the metropolitan region. This is a full service psychiatric emergency program with 12 beds in a dedicated space in the emergency room and has approximately 850 visits per month. It is directed by DeJuan White, MD. The acute care program also includes a Crisis Intervention Service unit (CIS), which receives patients from the PES and where patients are stabilized before further disposition. The CIS service is directed by Sarah Cook, MD. Both the PES and CIS are staffed by full time faculty, psychiatric residents, psychology trainees, mid-level providers, nurses, security officers and mental health clinicians.

Grady has a 24-bed inpatient adult psychiatric unit staffed by two full-time attendings, four 1st year psychiatric residents, and a 4th year chief resident in psychiatry. It is directed by Monica Ward, MD. Each resident carries approximately six patients on the unit, with four residents being on service at any one time. Additionally, there are psychology postdoctoral fellows, medical students and other trainees on the unit.

The department maintains a Consultation and Liaison Service led by Ann Schwartz, MD. The Consultation/Liaison Service provides assessments and assistance with patient management and disposition of medical and surgical patients as well as specialty liaison services to many parts of the Grady Health System. The service sees a wide variety of psychiatric disorders with over 150 consults per month. The service is staffed by 1 full-time Emory attending, 3 part-time Emory and Morehouse attendings and 1 advanced level practitioner. Multiple trainees rotate on the service, including Emory PGY-2 residents, Morehouse PGY-3 residents, and medical students.

The largest Grady service is the Adult Outpatient Service located at 10 Park Place, a few blocks from the general hospital. This service is directed by Jennifer Wootten, MD, and staffed by additional full-time Emory and Morehouse faculty. The service has approximately 5500 patient visits per month. These are primarily people with chronic and severe mental illnesses. This program is the primary training site for Emory PGY-III psychiatry residents, as well as many other trainees including residents from Morehouse. In addition to the medication management services, some of the other therapeutic interventions offered to patients include recovery programs, group therapies and individual therapy. There are specialty services including a First Break psychosis program, women's peripartum care and specialty groups for Bipolar Disorder. In addition, there is a primary care clinic that serves some of our patients staffed by Dr. Martha Ward. In addition, the department has extensive community outreach programs. It provides psychiatric services to homeless shelters, supportive living facilities and other community-based programs serving patients who are unable to come to Grady Memorial Hospital on a regular basis for mental health care.

Residents rotating on the service have an opportunity to participate in an elective half day. Some elective options include the Persistent Symptom Treatment, Assessment and Recovery program, Assertive Community Treatment program, Medication Assisted Opiate Treatment and the Grady Trauma Project.

Assertive Community Treatment is a model of healthcare delivery that provides intensive outpatient psychiatric services in a community setting for people with chronic and severe mental illnesses. The medical director for this service is Justin Palanci, MD. There are currently three teams that provide services for up to 100 consumers per team. Each team is comprised of advanced level practitioners, social workers, addiction counselors, nursing staff, Certified Peer Specialists, Vocational Rehabilitation Specialists, case managers and a program manager. In addition, Morehouse School of Medicine and Emory University residents/medical students and University of Georgia psychology interns rotate through this service as part of their Community Psychiatry training experience.

The Psychiatry and Law Service, directed by Peter Ash, MD, provides services to courts, jails, the state mental health system and other community agencies. The program has two and a half full time faculty members, three forensic psychiatry fellows and two forensic psychology post-doctoral fellows per year as well as other trainees in psychology and other disciplines.

The Department oversees a comprehensive specialty HIV behavioral health service program at the Grady Ponce de Leon Center, which houses one of the largest HIV primary care programs in the United States and features an internationally recognized model for comprehensive multidisciplinary and multiservice ambulatory HIV care. The Ponce Center also houses research space for HIV clinical trials as well as offices for the Clinical Research Core of the Emory Center for AIDS Research. The HIV behavioral health program at the Ponce Center, directed by Eugene Farber, PhD, , provides comprehensive mental health and substance use treatment services as well as behavioral health programs for approximately 1,400 patients annually. It is staffed by faculty psychiatrists and psychologists, as well as advanced practice nurses, licensed professional counselors, and substance use treatment specialists. Program services are structured to correspond to the organization of the Ponce Center’s primary care clinics, including general Adult services, Women’s specialty services, Pediatric/teen specialty services (infants, children, youth, and families), and interdisciplinary HIV palliative care services. Behavioral health faculty and staff also offer services in a specialty clinic at the Ponce Center that provides coordinated primary care, case management, and psychiatric services for patients whose HIV treatment adherence and retention in care is complicated by chronic psychosocial instability associated with severe mental illness and/or substance use disorders. The HIV behavioral health services program at the Ponce Center is an elective training rotation for PGY-IV residents, psychology interns, and M-4 medical students. It also is a rotation site for all residents in the psychosomatic medicine and addiction psychiatry training programs.

Since its establishment in the 1990s, Nia, deemed a healthcare innovation by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), has helped over 2,000 low-income African-American women who have experienced domestic violence and attempted suicide. It is a culturally competent intervention program offered by Grady Health System and the Emory Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences with the mission of empowering abused, suicidal African American women to access behavioral health services, find a new sense of purpose, lead more meaningful lives, and affirm their commitment to living a violence-free life. The Nia Community Advisory Board includes community representatives and program participants. Nia provides individual therapy, 20 weekly groups (including support groups as well as DBT, ACT, Seeking Safety, STAIR), and couple/family therapy; a 24-hour on-call system; and access to Relieflink, the nationally recognized suicide prevention app developed by the team. Community partners (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Botanical Gardens) provide opportunities for the women to engage in cultural enrichment activities.

The Grady Compassion and Meditation Project (CAMP) serves men and women who have attempted suicide. It uses cognitively-based compassion meditation and builds upon the Emory-Tibet Partnership. Participants in Grady CAMP have access to the co-ed support and evidence-based intervention groups.

Nia and Grady CAMP, which are both clinical and clinical-research programs, are under the leadership of Nadine J. Kaslow, PhD, ABPP, Professor and Vice Chair in Emory’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Chief Psychologist at Grady Health System, as well as Sarah Dunn, PhD, ABPP who serves as the Clinical and Education Director. For her leadership on Nia and Grady CAMP, Dr. Kaslow has been named one of the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority 2015 Healthcare Champions. Psychology trauma track and general interns rotate through the programs. Psychiatry residents can do an elective and based on the resident’s interests, the elective can include a combination of individual therapy, group therapy, medication management, and clinical-research.