Our very own Behavioral Health Call Center would like to wish everyone a happy and spooky Halloween! Many of the team members dressed up as crayons to celebrate the occasion! This team is our first point of contact for patients calling in to receive our services and do an amazing job each and every day ensuring the needs of our patients are met. We are consistently amazed by their efforts and dedication to our patient population. Keep up the great work, Behavioral Call Center Team; we can’t wait to continue to celebrate together in the months to come!

HEAL Celebrates 5 Years

In October, the Healing through Health, Education, Advocacy and Law (HEAL) Collaborative celebrated its five year anniversary. HEAL was developed as a partnership between URMC, people who have lived experience with domestic violence, and community partner agencies to provide psychological, medical, legal, and personal support for those who have experienced psychological, physical, or sexual abuse, as well as child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and/or elder abuse. Partners include Willow Domestic Violence Center, the Rochester Police Department, Just Cause, the Legal Aid Society of Rochester, Lifespan, SAFER (an advocate group), and Monroe Family Court. The services HEAL provides include legal assistance, social work support, trauma-focused psychotherapy, and medical consultation, and in response to the pandemic, the team has moved to a hybrid model of services. Congratulations to HEAL for this milestone, and keep up the great work! 

Psychiatry Mental Health Nursing Team Promotes Staff Wellness 

The Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing Service, in conjunction with the Strong Memorial Hospital Strategic Nursing Wellness Committee, held a Wellness Fair on Wednesday Oct 6th, 2021 on 4-9200. We had multiple wellness stations for the inpatient nursing staff to visit that included: Biometric Screening, Workplace Orthopedic Screens, Employee Assistance Program and Well-U, The Running Company, Healthy Snacks, and Flu Shots. In addition, we developed several additional stations that we thought would be helpful and supportive to our staff, these included: Secondary Traumatic Stress, Promoting Better Sleep, Mindfulness & Meditation resources, and Take a Hike, Bike, or Stroll. (We asked for suggestions from participants for hikes and daytrips to try on your day off.)  

We also celebrated the grand opening of the Nursing Wellness Room. This is a place that allows staff some space to decompress after a difficult event has occurred on one of our inpatient units. The room is comfortable, quiet, allows staff some distraction, and self-care activities, and perhaps to enjoy a cup of tea or coffee before regrouping to return to their unit. Nursing Leadership donated and purchased prizes with wellness themes that were  raffled off to staff.  

Staff that assisted during the seven-hour Wellness Fair included Lara Walker, Nurse Manager (4-9000); Brian Swart, ANM (3-9200); Laura Aikens, RN 39000; Mary Jo Newcomb, RN Ambulatory; Tara Augenstein, PhD, Inpatient Psychology;  Autumn Gallegos, PhD, Department Wellness Officer, and Heather O'Brien, Senior Nurse Educator. 

Lisham Ashrafioun Awarded Two Grants from Veteran's Affairs
Funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will soon be supporting interventions to help Veterans experiencing substance use disorder at UR Medicine. We are excited to share that Lisham Ashrafioun, PhD recently was awarded two grants from the VA. The first of the funded studies will test an intervention to increase the management of pain without medications among veterans taking prescription opioids. The second will develop and assess an intervention to decrease loneliness among Veterans with a substance use disorder. Congratulations to Dr. Ashrafioun for these awards for an important topic!

Telva Olivares Receives Inspirational Leadership Award

We're incredibly proud to share that Telva Olivares, MD, Director of our Medicine in Psychiatry Services and Lazos Fuertes programs, has been chosen as the 2021 Latinas Unidas Inspirational Leadership Award​ Recipient! She was nominated by her peers- Evelyn Santos, BSN, RN, PMHN-BC, Evelyn Padilla, LMSW, Caroline Silva, PhD, and Blanca Valdovinos, MD- for her leadership which inspires others to strive for excellence. READ MORE>>>

Patrick Seche Receives 2021 Collaborative Care Award

Congratulations to Patrick Seche, MS, Director of Services in Addiction Psychiatry, for being awarded the 2021 Collaborative Care Award. We celebrate your leadership and commitment to people struggling with substance abuse disorders as well as to the staff and clinicians who are involved in this important work.

Jack McIntyre Awarded ICON Honor
Jack McIntyre, MD, Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and 1967 graduate of the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry, was recently named an honoree of the Rochester Business Journal's 2021 Icon Honors in recognition of his success and leadership in his field. The award will be presented at a celebration in December. Congratulations to Dr. McIntyre on this well-deserved recognition! 

Ambulatory Team Recognized for Vaccination Effort

East House recently recognized our ambulatory psychiatry nursing team and the ambulatory provider group with the Partner In Hope Award for their help in administering COVID-19 vaccines. In February, this team held Mobile Vaccine Clinic days to help vaccinate East House staff and patients. READ MORE>>>

Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy Program Holding Open House
Our Masters of Science Program in Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) will be holding two virtual open houses on November 5th and December 3rd! This will be an opportunity for those interested in a career in Marriage and Family Therapy to learn more about the program. To register for either session, email mft@urmc.rochester.edu. READ MORE>>>

November 6th Child Mental Health Event 
In partnership with Greater Rochester Health Foundation, and Greater Rochester Parent Leadership Training Institute, our Golisano Children's Hospital Pediatric Behavioral Health and Wellness Services will be holding an event focused on child mental health at Pentecostal Power of Deliverance on November 6th. The event will include food, giveaways, and information on local youth mental health resources. READ MORE>>>

Addressing Substance Use Disorder in Rural Appalachia 

Our UR Medicine Recovery Center of Excellence was recently featured on the American Public Health Association's Thought Leader Series at their Annual Meeting in Denver. Check out this video for news on what the center and partners are doing to tackle substance abuse in Appalachian communities.

In addition, in a recent Recovery Center of Excellence article, Patrick Seche, MS spoke on how the Rural Opioid and Direct Support Services (ROADSS) model uses partnerships between opioid treatment programs in urban areas and rural organizations to address care disparities for substance use disorder in rural areas. READ MORE>>>

URMC Convenes Task Force to Address Mental Health Needs in Youth
A recent article by 13 WHAM ABC discusses what our Pediatric Behavioral Health & Wellness services are doing to tackle the growing mental health crisis among young people in our community. READ MORE>>>

Discussing How to Treat Pandemic and Seasonal-Related Mental Health Concerns
Recent research has found that depression rates have risen during the pandemic. Eric Caine, MD joined Melanie Funchess of Ubuntu Village, LLC and Jerome Stiller of Thrive Health and Wellness LLC to speak during the program Connections with Evan Dawson on advice for those struggling with pandemic and seasonal-related mental health concerns. READ MORE>>>

How to Support Medical Professionals Struggling With Mental Illness
Ronald Epstein, MD joined Chris Burleigh, RN, nurse manager in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Strong Memorial Hospital and Jefferson Svengsouk, MD, professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine on an episode of Connections with Evan Dawson to talk about how mental illness affects health care practitioners and the barriers to getting treatment. READ MORE>>>

Efforts to Digitize George Engel Drawings Now Underway

We're excited to share that efforts to digitize drawings from the tenure of George Engel, MD, creator of the biopsychosocial model of health, are now underway. Throughout his career in the Department of Psychiatry from 1946 to 1999, Dr. Engel often doodled at meetings. Office of Diversity, Inclusion, Culture, and Equity student employees, Megan Browne and Shania Davis, are currently working with our Psychiatry Technology Group and Miner Library to scan the drawings in preparation for a exhibition of Dr. Engel's doodles in the Single Artist Space in the Bridge Art Gallery on the first floor of our Strong Memorial Hospital location in January. 

October Psychiatry Publications 

• Thomas O’Connor, PhD and Allison Ciesla, PhD published this paper which researched the Maternal Immune Activation hypothesis and its effect on understanding prenatal influences on individual differences

• Yeates Conwell, MD coauthored this paper aimed at estimating the impact of continuity of care (COC) on successful community discharge after hospitalization in older veterans with dementia.

• The phenomenon of dreaming about one's laboratory experience is common in sleep studies. Michelle Carr, PhD is a coauthor on this paper looking at factors associated with dreams as well as their phenomenology using a new scoring system.

• Tara Augenstein, PhD published a paper alongside Lifespan Physician Group, Harvard Medical School, and University of Maryland College Park colleagues on using patterns in multiple informants’ reports to predict suicidal ideation in youths.

• Thomas O'Connor, PhD was a coauthor on a Development and Psychopathology study examining whether infant negative and positive emotionality predicted children's ADHD symptoms at 4 to 8 years of age.

• Thomas O’Connor, PhD was a coauthor on a paper which concluded that risk behaviors are not reliably or clinically different in youth with Tourette's Syndrome, and that ADHD severity was associated with higher rates of experiencing bullying.
• Wilfred Pigeon, PhD co-authored this paper finding that among veterans receiving depression treatment mismatches between treatment preferences and treatment received were common and were associated with worse treatment adherence for psychotherapy. 
• Thomas O'Connor, PhD was a coauthor on a SSM-Mental Health paper assessing how youth with cancer interpreted perceived threat related to their diagnosis across age ranges. 
• Yeates Conwell, MD co-authored a paper in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry examining racial differences in the frequency of schizophrenia diagnoses among nursing home residents with Alzheimer's Disease and dementia after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began to publicly report nursing home antipsychotic use in 2012. 
• Anton P. Porsteinsson, MD was a coauthor on a clinical study looking at β-amyloid-positive and β-amyloid-negative individuals and whether disturbed sleep and altered 24-hour rest/activity rhythms can serve as markers of preclinical Alzheimer's Disease.
• Peter Britton, PhD, Dev Crasta, PhD, and Wilfred Pigeon, PhD co-authored a paper about the shorter and longer-term risk for non-fatal suicide attempts among male U.S. military veterans after discharge from psychiatric hospitalization.

Upcoming Events

• Nov. 5: Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy Program Open House
• ​Nov. 5: Responding to Community Concerns about Chemical Exposure
• Nov. 6: Child Mental Health Event 
• Nov. 10: The Healers' Village - Creating an Ecosystem of Wellness for People of the African Diaspora
• Nov. 12: Veterans' Day Lunch & Learn Session
• Nov. 19: One Health Initiative in Borneo
• ​Dec. 3: ​Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy Program Open House