IN THIS ISSUE: President’s Message | Stoudemire Award | Visiting Professors | Posters | What’s on the Web | A&E Abstracts
‘There is an unmet need for better access to mental health care for those who are going through cancer treatment’
‘We have hit a bit of a wall with critical care’
‘The visiting professorship will be extremely helpful to inform development of clinical programs in C-L Psychiatry’
ACLP’s Visiting Professorship Program awards have this year been made to Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine; New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medicine; and University of Florida Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
Nominated by: Veronika Hanko, MD, instructor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, affiliated with Northwestern Memorial Hospital, a large tertiary care center in Chicago with an extensive network of satellite locations throughout Northeastern Illinois.
“We have a robust full time C-L Psychiatry service engaged in teaching of psychiatry trainees (including residents, fellows, and medical students) as well as multidisciplinary outreach throughout the greater hospital system,” says Dr. Hanko. “All of our psychiatry residents, C-L psychiatry fellows, addiction psychiatry fellows, and geriatric psychiatry fellows rotate on our inpatient C-L service, as do dozens of medical students annually. Our hospital system is actively expanding integrated care models. As of now, we have no inpatient psycho-oncology service, and our outpatient psycho-oncology clinic has limited capacity and is not staffed by a physician nor C-L psychiatrist.”
It has been a number of years since the hospital had a dedicated psycho-oncologist yet trainees (and faculty) frequently navigate complex cases on the oncology floors. “Our oncology colleagues would appreciate more access to mental health treatment for their patients,” says Dr. Hanko, “but we have not been able to come to an agreement yet on the ideal model or reimbursement structure. Our hope for this visiting professorship is two-fold:
“We think it is essential for our department to gain the perspective from another hospital system that already has a dedicated psycho-oncology program. While there is a small ‘supportive oncology’ division within psychology/licensed clinical social work, they simply do not have the capacity to handle all of the inpatient and outpatient needs of this population, nor can they address medication management.”
Patients with cancer have complex medical and psychiatric needs, Dr. Hanko points out. They also experience significant neuropsychiatric effects from cancer therapy, both traditional and newer lines of treatment. “Our general outpatient psychiatry clinic referral wait times are months long and there is an unmet need for better access to mental health care for those who are going through cancer treatment. Specifically, patients with cancer are at a higher risk for suicide. Currently, we do not have any clinical pathways or screening assessments to improve the referral and management of psychiatric distress in patients with cancer. Often patients are thus encountered in the inpatient setting with high acuity symptoms.
“Ideally, we would prefer to design a system that is more proactive and collaborative. This visiting professorship will grant us the opportunity to not only gain clinical skills, but also learn more about approaches to strategic planning and models of psych-onc care.”
The visiting professor will be: Sheila Lahijani, MD, FACLP.
Dr. Lahijani is an associate clinical professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and medical director of the Stanford Cancer Center Psychosocial Oncology Program. She is a graduate of Brown Medical School, the Combined Internal Medicine/Psychiatry Residency Program at Rush University Medical Center, and the Psychosomatic Medicine Fellowship at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University. As medical director, she oversees the development and operationalization of psychiatric care for patients with cancer.
Dr. Lahijani is chair of ACLP’s Palliative Medicine & Psycho-Oncology SIG. She serves on the Program Committee for the American Psychosocial Oncology Society, and is program chair for the APOS 2025 Meeting. She also serves on the Advisory Panel for Cancer.Net at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the Distress Management Guidelines Panel, as well as the Fatigue Panel for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
Nominated by: Anna Dickerman, MD, DFAPA, FACLP, service chief, Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and Weill Cornell Medicine; program director, Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Fellowship and associate professor of Clinical Psychiatry, New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine.
“We have a busy, well-established and academic C-L Psychiatry service with many rotating trainees, some advanced practice providers, and mostly early-career C-L trained psychiatric attendings (and a mid-career fellowship program director/service chief) who would benefit from the more senior mentorship of the visiting professor program,” says Dr. Dickerman.
“Importantly, we have just launched a C-L Psychiatry fellowship program; our inaugural fellow started in July this year. We have some embedded/proactive services (e.g., on the general medicine and HIV services), but are looking to expand this model to the critical care setting. The latter has been more difficult than expected to launch, and we are seeking guidance. While we have had some excess with service line expansion via embedded roles in other subspecialties, we have hit a bit of a wall with the critical care sphere. It is evident to us that there is a need for this, and we are seeking ways to better educate and work with our critical care colleagues around this issue. This program will help educate our hospital staff about the importance of dedicated critical care psychiatry.
“Our C-L Psychiatry service attendings will get the benefit of mentorship and wisdom from an esteemed senior colleague. Our mid-career fellowship program director and service chief (the sponsor) will benefit from this as well. Also, we may be able to engage general psychiatry residents to generate more interest in pursuing a career in C-L Psychiatry, which is particularly important at the time we are just launching our fellowship.”
The visiting professor will be: Jose Maldonado, MD, FACLP.
Dr. Maldonado is professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. He also serves as chief of the Division of Medical Psychiatry, medical director of the Consultation Psychiatry Service, and chief of Critical Care Psychiatry at Stanford University Medical Center.
Dr Maldonado, chair of the Academy’s Critical Care Psychiatry SIG, has been the recipient of multiple awards and recognitions, including the Academy’s highest honor, the Eleanor and Thomas P. Hackett Memorial Award for distinctive achievements in C-L Psychiatry training, research, clinical practice, and leadership.
Nominated by: Dimitry Davydow, MD, MPH, FACLP, professor and vice-chair of Clinical Operations, University of Florida (UF) Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
The department provides psychiatric services across four campuses and educates residents in general psychiatry, fellows in several psychiatric subspecialties and UF medical students. The UF Division of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry provides psychiatric consultations services to UF Health Shands Hospital and Children’s Hospital, a 1,030-bed tertiary referral academic medical center that includes an NCI-Designated Cancer Center and nationally ranked programs in heart, lung, liver and kidney transplantation. The department has 70 full-time faculty and a general psychiatry residency program with 43 residents, and fellowship programs in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Addiction Medicine, Geriatric Psychiatry and Neuromodulation.
The visiting professorship will benefit the department by:
In March 2024, the Florida State Legislature passed the Behavioral Health Teaching Hospital Bill providing $100 million per year for three years to academic medical and mental health centers to develop programs that increase the behavioral health workforce in the state of Florida as well as improve access to psychiatric care for Florida’s citizens. UF is anticipated to receive $25 million per year from this award beginning in 2025.
“The Visiting Professorship Program will be extremely helpful for the UF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences to inform development of clinical programs of relevance to C-L Psychiatry that will be funded through this award,” says Dr. Davydow.
The visiting professor will be: Hochang ‘Ben’ Lee, MD, FACLP.
Dr. Lee is chair, Department of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and is an acknowledged expert in developing high-quality, cost-effective C-L psychiatric services. He has experience in building clinical programs in C-L Psychiatry, taking into account budgetary constraints of being within a larger academic medical center. He is also a clinical researcher with a track record of obtaining extramural funding for clinical research in areas relevant to C-L Psychiatry, and has served as a mentor to several C-L psychiatrists both at his own institution and through ACLP.
Dr. Lee is editor-in-chief of the Academy’s scientific journal, the Journal of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (JACLP).