News

The Office of Learning Environment and Wellbeing will launch a pilot project to investigate the feasibility and impact of a cross-disciplinary peer support program on connectedness, burnout, and wellness for students in health professions education programs. Created by McLean Pollock, PhD, assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and Jane Gagliardi, MD, MHS, associate dean for learning environment and wellbeing and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, the collaborative peer support and coaching project is being funded by Duke AHEAD.

The first Black woman to graduate from the Duke School of Medicine in 1972, Jean Spaulding, MD, went on to help lead Duke Health as an administrator, making primary health care accessible to low-wealth residents across Durham and beyond. Spaulding is a Duke Psychiatry alumna and a former Duke Psychiatry consulting professor.

Experts at Duke University School of Medicine—including Duke Psychiatry's Rajendra Morey, MD—are scrutinizing the myriad ways in which shifting environmental conditions shape our well-being. Their work explores how environmental changes could impact respiratory disease, cancer risk, food security, the ability to fight infection, and threats to mental health.

Cathy Lefebvre, a program coordinator in the Division of Child and Family Mental Health & Community Psychiatry, supports the psychiatry clerkship program for medical students and the Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds series. She's worked in the department for 28 years, with a total of 31 years of service at the School of Medicine to date. 

On April 20, the lobby of Duke Children’s Hospital will be transformed into a dance floor and party scene for the seventh annual Jodie’s Prom at Duke Children’s Hospital. The prom is a celebration of life for adolescents and young adults living with a chronic physical health condition and is organized by Duke Psychiatry's ATLAS program.

Duke University School of Medicine and Wake Forest University are tackling Alzheimer's and dementia in North Carolina through the North Carolina Registry for Brain Health. With over 210,000 people affected, their efforts focus on education, research participation, and diverse representation which is crucial for effective treatments. The project is co-led by Duke Psychiatry's Kathleen Welsh-Bohmer, PhD.

In his new book, "Facing the Unseen: The Struggle to Center Mental Health in Medicine," Duke Psychiatry's Damon Tweedy, MD, weaves together patient stories, personal reflections, and conversations with experts to explore how medical culture has historically separated physical and mental health, how this dichotomy harms both patients and doctors, and how we can better integrate these two perspectives for a more holistic and effective approach to health and well-being.

DukeLine, an anonymous text line for Duke students, by Duke students, was created to help fill in for high-stress situations when in-person therapy may fall short for students. The service is led by Nancy Zucker, PhD (Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences), Guillermo Sapiro, PhD (Engineering), and Sarah Gaither, PhD (Psychology & Neurosciences).

In this NC Newsline commentary, Duke Psychiatry professor Marvin Swartz, MD, and Megan Moore, a policy analyst at the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law, argue that North Carolina should move rapidly to embrace and expand non-law enforcement tools for transporting people in mental health crises.

Duke Psychiatry's Stephanie Hargrove, PhD, recently shared tips for how providers can incorporate trauma-informed care (TIC) into their organization’s clinical practices and policies, based on six core principles of TIC developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.