December 2013  

The 2013-14 Detre and McNeil Fellowship Award recipients. Left to right: Daniel Moreno De Luca, MD, MSc; Youngsun Cho, MD, PhD; Albert Powers, MD, PhD; and Alan Lewis, MD, PhD.

An anonymous gift from an alumnus has established three one-year research fellowships in memory of Thomas Detre, MD, an internationally renowned academic psychiatrist and distinguished alumnus of Yale Psychiatry. John Krystal, MD, the Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Professor of Translational Research and psychiatry department chair, has created a fourth award named the McNeil Fellowship.

The Detre and McNeil Fellowships will support the translational research endeavors of residents through the Neuroscience Research Training Program.

The recipients of the first fellowship awards are Youngsun Cho, MD, PhD; Daniel Moreno De Luca, MD, MSc; Alan Lewis, MD, PhD; and Albert Powers, MD, PhD. Read more 

Samuel Ball, PhD, professor of psychiatry, has been named president and chief executive of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. Ball will oversee an expanded effort by the center to study all addictions and addictive behaviors including obesity and eating disorders, compulsive gambling, and sexual addictions, as well as nicotine, alcohol, and illegal and prescription drugs. Read more 

Kirsten Wilkins, MD, associate professor of psychiatry, has been named director of clerkships at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Wilkins has directed the psychiatry clerkship since October 2011. As a clinician-educator Dr. Wilkins is actively involved in the supervision of medical students and psychiatry residents and fellows at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, Conn. Read more 

Multiple articles published in the November issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry add to growing literature that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder share a common biology. Godfrey Pearlson, MD, professor of psychiatry and of neurobiology, director of the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center, and a principal investigator of the Bipolar Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP), co-authored a number of the studies. Read more 

A single dose of the hormone oxytocin, delivered via nasal spray, has been shown to enhance brain activity while processing social information in children with autism spectrum disorders, Yale researchers report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. James Leckman, MD, Nieson Harris Professor in the Child Study Center and professor of pediatrics and of psychiatry, is an author of the study. Read more / View the study 

Researchers analyzed the genetic code of 2,927 individuals and found that two mutations in a gene on the X-chromosome correlated with alcoholism in men but not women. Lingjun Zuo, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry, is lead author of the article that appears in Psychiatric Genetics. John Krystal, MD, the Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Professor of Translational Research and psychiatry department chair, and Xingguang Luo, MD, associate research scientist in psychiatry, are co-authors. Read more / View the study 

A team led by researchers at Yale and Texas Biomedical Research Institute has shown that genetic factors play an important role in cognitive decline and reductions in cerebral white-matter integrity with normal aging. The study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. David Glahn, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry, is lead author. Read more / View the article 

An article published in Health Affairs addresses critical issues regarding the mental health and addiction workforce, including an insufficient number of practitioners, high turnover, lack of diversity, and inadequate preparation. Michael Hoge, PhD (left), professor of psychiatry, is lead author. Manuel Paris, PsyD (right), associate professor of psychiatry, is a co-author. Read more / View the article 

Three in 10 veterans prescribed psychotropic drugs do not have a diagnosis of a mental illness, a new study published in American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry shows. Ilse Wiechers, MD, MPP (pictured), a postdoctoral fellow in medicine and alumnus of Yale's geriatric psychiatry fellowship, is lead author. Robert Rosenheck, MD, professor of psychiatry and of public health, and Paul Kirwin, MD, associate professor of psychiatry, are co-authors. Read more / View the study 

Researchers have found that among those with mental illnesses, people with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia are much more likely to be left-handed than those with mood disorders like depression or bipolar syndrome. Hussam Jefee, MD, a psychosomatic medicine fellow in the Department of Psychiatry, is co-author of this article which appears in Sage Open. Read more / View the article 

Howard Zonana, MD, professor of psychiatry and director of the department's Law and Psychiatry Division, was honored at a recent American Medical Association reception. Zonana is retiring as medical director of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL). In that role, he helped bring the expertise of AAPL to issues of psychiatry and the law addressed by the American Medical Association. Read more 

A panel convened by the New Haven Register explored institutional racism, current day prejudices, and other factors that contribute to community instability. Panel participants included Derrick Gordon, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and director of The Consultation Center's program on male development research. Read more 

A recent article by Andres Barkil-Oteo, MD, MSc, assistant professor of psychiatry, notes that many world-class hospitals and health systems are led by psychiatrists, and argues that psychiatry training programs should cultivate leadership skills as an important component of the profession. The commentary appears in Psychiatric News. Read more 

While many of us will find ourselves overindulging in candy over the holidays, and most of us have experienced times when it seems as if a food is literally calling out to us, how do we know if we are suffering from binge eating disorder? Robin Masheb, PhD, research scientist in psychiatry and assistant professor in divinity, writes this piece for The Huffington Post. Read more 

A number of Yale presenters at the American Psychiatric Association's Institute on Psychiatric Services were featured by PsychiatricTimes.com:

• The Role of Psychiatrists in Integrated Health Care; Aniyizhai Annamalai, MBBS, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry and of medicine
• Serving the Underserved: Who Needs Mental Health Care?; Andres Barkil-Oteo, MD, MSc, assistant professor of psychiatry; Marco Ramos, MD-PhD student; and Michelle Silva, PsyD, assistant professor of psychiatry
• A Risk Stratification Approach to Alcohol Detoxification; Nick Mellos, MD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry 
• Spiritual Matters: Inspiring Clinical Care; Michael Norko, MD, MAR, associate professor of psychiatry

Please join the Yale Department of Psychiatry in congratulating promoted faculty and welcoming its newest assistant professors, associate research scientists, instructors, and clinicians. Read more 

Alumni Spotlight

In Life Witness: Evolution of the Psychotherapist, T. Byram Karasu, MD demonstrates how a young therapist can become an expert clinician by transcending his own school of therapy. An alumnus of the Yale psychiatry residency, Karasu is professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Read more 

Sharon Weinstein, MD was awarded the first Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the New England Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She is assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and clinical associate in psychiatry in the Child and Adolescent Program at McLean Hospital. Weinstein earned her MD from Yale in 1978. Read more 

Alumni, please send updates and news to psychiatry@yale.edu.

In Memoriam

David J. Powell, PhD, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, died unexpectedly on November 1, 2013. He was internationally known for his expertise on the supervision of addiction services and assisted the department in launching the Yale Program on Supervision. He was a beloved teacher in the psychology internship program. Read more 

Photo Album

PHOTO 1 (above left) - October 23, 2013: Art and mental health lecture. Samuel Klagsbrun, MD (left), executive medical director of Four Winds Hospital, and Susan Weinreich (right), artist and lecturer, discussed art and the doctor/patient relationship at an event for Yale psychiatry residents. The event was hosted by Reynolds Fine Art during an exhibition of Weinreich's work. Klagsbrun is an alumnus of the Yale psychiatry residency. [Read more] Photo: Reynolds Fine Art

PHOTO 2 (above right) - November 14, 2013: Health Affairs and Academic Medicine policy briefing, Washington, D.C. At the briefing, Michael Hoge, PhD, professor of psychiatry, addressed the growing behavioral health workforce crisis. Hoge is director of Yale Behavioral Health, of the Yale Group on Workforce Development, and of clinical training in the department's Psychology Section. [Watch video from the briefing] Photo: Health Affairs

Psychiatry Grand Rounds

Friday, December 20, 2013; **10:15 am-1:00 pm**

Residents in the Department of Psychiatry Present: "DSM-5: An Overview and Update on Important Changes"

Carolyn M. Drazinic, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and in the Department of Genetics and Developmental Biology, University of Connecticut; & Charles Dike, MBChB, MD, MPH, FRCPsych, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, and Director of the Whiting Forensic Division, Connecticut Valley Hospital 

CMHC Auditorium, 34 Park St

Details / Download to Your Calendar 

Grand Rounds video archive

The department's website includes videos of past Grand Rounds presentations. Talks are added as they are digitized.