In the News

The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (VKC) Nicholas Hobbs Discovery Awards and Director’s Strategic Priorities Grants have been announced for the 2022-23 award cycle. Projects address spatial processing, repetitive movements, adaptation of an intervention for Spanish-speaking families, and improving diagnostic approaches and treatment strategies for autistic individuals with co-occurring intellectual disability.

Process must be customized to meet needs of individuals who have trouble naming and sharing emotions. Recently, emergency departments nationwide have seen a drastic upswing in young autistic people presenting with suicidal thoughts and behaviors. In response, Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers, writing in Pediatrics, have suggested ways that clinicians and emergency department staff can adapt suicide safety plans to meet their special needs and enhance quality of care.

Kristopher A Kast, M.D., assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, program director of the Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program, and clinical director of the Addiction Consult Service, recently served as author of a newly-published paper in the Journal of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry.

Peter Martin, M.D., professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, has published his latest book, Historical Vocabulary of Addiction. This book is intended for all psychiatrists and others who are interested in mental disorders, especially those who have not viewed patients who suffer from addictive disorders as typically in their bailiwick. 

Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital (VPH) has launched a new social work fellowship which will prepare master’s degree-level graduates for social work in the behavioral health field. Click here to read the VUMC Reporter article.

Vanderbilt University recently honored several faculty members for their years of service and bestowed on them the title of emeritus or emerita faculty. Among them were 15 from the School of Medicine.

The Vision of Hope Award Gala, now in its eighth year, advocating with leaders and bringing together a mix of behavioral healthcare leaders with Tennessee’s generous philanthropic community. 

Three faculty members from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences — Warren Taylor, MD, MHSc, Paul Newhouse, MD, and William Petrie, MD — were recently honored at the 2022 American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) Awards.

Important new paper by the Center for Cognitive Medicine's Alexander Conley, PhD providing further evidence that cognitive changes after menopause influence brain function and response to estrogen.

Assistant professor of Geriatric Psychiatry Patricia S. Andrews, M.D., recently served as lead author on the paper "Delirium, depression, and long-term cognition," published in the journal International Psychogeriatrics. In this new publication, Dr. Andrews et. al. found that patients with a depression history prior to ICU stay exhibit a greater severity of depressive symptoms in the year after hospitalization.