News

Duke's Office for Faculty Advancement has awarded seed grants to 14 new projects led by Duke faculty members, including a team in Duke Psychiatry seeking to increasing neurodiversity competency of faculty at Duke.

Use of the Collaborative Care Model at Duke University began on a pilot basis five years ago, when the University Health System awarded the Department of Psychiatry an innovation grant to establish the model at a handful of primary care sites. Duke Psychiatry's Marvin Swartz, MD, is the director of the Duke Area Health Education Center (AHEC), which is providing training and technical support to practices implementing collaborative care.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and an associated spike in mental illness, a multidisciplinary, multipayer team of leaders across North Carolina launched the Collaborative Care Consortium to drive implementation of the Collaborative Care Model. Duke Psychiatry's Nathan Copeland, MD, MPH, and Marvin Swartz, MD, among other Duke Psychiatry faculty members, are involved in the effort.

Simon Davis, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the departments of neurology and psychiatry, was recently awarded a grant from the U.S. National Institute for Aging to study brain activity patterns that support memory function in aging adults. The $3.6 million grant will allow Davis and his colleagues to test whether a magnetic brain stimulation can improve memory in older adults aging healthy and those with an increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

Ryan Slauer, MD, a fourth-year internal medicine-psychiatry resident, and Lynette Staplefoote-Boynton, MD, MPH, a third-year internal medicine-psychiatry resident, have received this year’s James H. Carter, Sr. Community Service Award, established in honor of Carter’s dedication to serving the underserved.

Duke University School of Medicine was awarded more than $527 million in federal funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2022, ranking ninth nationally among academic medical centers, according to the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research. The Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences ranked eighth.

Signs of autism can hide in plain sight, but a Duke University School of Medicine study shows machine learning may help spot them. Duke Psychiatry's Geraldine Dawson, PhD, was the senior author in the study.

Two new proposed state laws targeting LGBTQ+ youth in North Carolina would drive up suicide rates, restrict health care providers and limit schools’ ability to provide safe havens for students, three Duke experts—including Duke Psychiatry's Dane Whicker, PhD, and Sarah Wilson, PhD—said Wednesday.

When Bernadette Vereen, MSW, LCSW-A, was hired as a member of Duke Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences’ growing perinatal mental health team in fall 2021, she quickly connected with Julia Tarr, MSW, LCSW, who had recently begun her role serving three Duke Perinatal high-risk obstetrics clinics. Within a few months, the two social workers were talking daily, collaborating to figure out how to best provide behavioral health support to patients with high-risk pregnancies.

Through a new National Institutes of Health grant, Sarah “Sadie” Wilson, PhD, hopes to reduce inequities that place Latinx individuals at higher risk of HIV. She’s partnering with her friend and colleague, Joaquin Carcaño, director of southern health policy at Latinos in the South, to launch a community-based, equity-focused initiative in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.