The ACF Council Meets on Zoom

Our ACF Council is shown in this photo taken during the May 2020 Zoom meeting.  Members present were: Stephanie Evans, Mary Ann Norfleet, Manasi Rana, Randy Weingarten, Dana Wideman, Mali Mann and Alan Brauer.  We invite our ACF to attend these meetings which are always listed on the Upcoming Events page of this website.  Just use the Contact form on this website to receive the Zoom meeting link and join us at our next meeting.  We welcome your attendance and participation!

Love for the Long Haul

This free educational program, developed by Dr. Barbara White, is an excellent resource to help couples strengthen and improve their relationship. You can learn more about "Love for the Long Haul" by clicking here.  There is a blog which is updated regularly.  The current topic is "Date Night -- Even During Covid!."


News

News

Most Recent ACF Council Meeting

The ACF Council met via Zoom on February 12, 2024 for the ACF meeting.  The next Council meeting will be via Zoom on Monday, March 11, 2024, from 7-8 pm.  The Council welcomed 2 of our ACF members as atttendees:  Wendy Bernstein, MD and Nida Mirza, PsyD. We also welcomed Shaili Jain, MD as a new member of the Council.  The other Council members in attendance were: Dr.s Pilar Bernal, Alan Brauer, Stephanie Evans, Mali Mann, Mary Ann Norfleet, Manasi Rana, Janet Spraggins and Dana Wideman. This meeting is open to all ACF in our Department.  Please contact us for the link if you are interested in attending this meeting.  We invite your participation.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Congratulations to Thomas Plante, PhD, ABPP and Anil Rama, MD
Recipients of the 2021 ACF Distinguished Service Award

For the past 30 years, Dr. Plante has made significant educational contributions to the Department, primarily in the context of teaching a long-standing course on ethics, legal issues, and professionalism to child and adolescent psychology clinical interns. Additionally, Dr. Plante has lectured and taught extensively on spirituality and religion as a multicultural issue and on career discernment issues for psychology interns and postdoctoral fellows in our department and at the Palo Alto VA, and provided honorable committee service at the department and medical school level for many years. He is widely considered to be a pillar within our ACF community.

Dr. Rama has honorably served as a clinical supervisor and teacher to sleep medicine fellows in our department for over 16 years. Dr. Rama also counsels our sleep medicine fellows on clinical and scientific career planning. He is extremely valued for his contributions and is considered to be indispensable to the sleep medicine clinical and teaching program. Dr. Rama is a true unsung hero within our ACF community.


To ACF from Dr. Roberts, March 2020

 Dear Colleagues:

You are, by definition, people who help our community and our department through your volunteer efforts --  teaching, providing care, offering expertise, collaborating, showing support.  I, along with the leaders and learners of Stanford Psychiatry, deeply appreciate your presence.  We have always cherished your many contributions to the academic life of our department -- and yet your contributions to the emotional health and wellbeing of others are also so very important and deserve special mention in this difficult time. 

I find myself thinking of you this morning -- understanding that you must be spending countless hours supporting your patients, supervisees, and others in need in our area.  And you must be worried about your families and your own health, given the pervasive threat of COVID-19..  Many of you serve as therapists/clinicians for health professionals who are placing themselves at risk to help the people of the Bay Area.  Helping them as they shoulder these heavy burdens is crucial and, as hard as it has been, it will soon be harder.

So, I am writing to thank you.  Please know that you are appreciated and that your quiet and unfailing efforts to help others is making a difference.  I am also writing to ask that you stay connected, especially if you are in individual or small group practices which can be a bit isolated and sometimes lack support/infrastructure.  Just as you have been there for us, we are here for you, too.

Sincerely,

L
 

Laura Roberts, MD, MA, DLFAPA, FACLP

Chairman, Katherine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor                                                             

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine

2019 Appreciation Day

The Department held its annual ACF Appreciation Day on Saturday, May 4th at the Garden Court Hotel in downtown Palo Alto, with over 50 faculty in attendance.  Dr. Shashank Joshi delivered an invited lecture entitled “School-based suicide prevention in youth: Lessons from the last 10 years and wisdom for the next 10”, and Dr. Mali Mann was presented with the 2019 ACF Distinguished Service Award.  The event also included a showcase of art by members of our ACF.

The Nuts & Bolts of Clinical Practice

All of our ACF members were asked to participate in a practice survey developed by our Council member, Alan Brauer, MD.  Based on the information provided and interest shown by the respondents, the "Nuts and Bolts" seminar included information on multiple topics including coding, insurance authorization, inter-referrals, HIPAA issues, office space, softwares available for billing/charting, telemedicine, YELP and other social media, websites, etc.  We enjoyed a very informative presentation and a lively discusion of resources for clinical practice.

Department Holiday Party

The ACF had a table and nametags for our members at the Department's Holiday Party at the Stanford Faculty Club in December. Information was distributed about the upcoming March 25th "Nuts and Bolts of Clinical Practice" presentation. The Holiday Party was well attended and everyone enjoyed the festive evening and the opportunity to connect with Department faculty, staff, trainees and fellow ACF members.

Dr. Humphreys Spoke to the ACF at the Annual ACF Appreciation Meeting on April 21, 2018

Keith Humphreys, PhD is a psychologist who is the Esther Ting Memorial Professor at Stanford University, a Senior Research Career Scientist in the Veterans Health Administration, and an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley, King's College, London.  He has over 250 peer-reviewed journal publications as well as having authored several books and book chapters.  Dr. Humphreys served as Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in 2009-2010 and he was one of the lead drafters of President Obama’s National Drug Control Strategy.

He is currently Director of the Mental Health Policy Section at the Division of Public Mental Health and Population Sciences in Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.  He also serves on the affiliated faculty of Stanford’s Center for Innovation in Global Health, Stanford’s Neurosciences Institute, Stanford’s Center for Health Policy, and Stanford Law School.  He frequently writes articles for many popular magazines and newspapers including Newsweek, the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

Dr. Humphreys researches interventions for substance abuse and psychiatric disorders. He focuses particularly on evaluating the outcomes of professionally-administered treatments and peer-operated self-help groups (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous), developing health services research-related applications for innovative qualitative and quantitative research techniques, and analyzing national mental health policy.

Click here to watch the video of his presentation on “Cannabis Use Disorder Treatment in a Rapidly Changing World".

Dr. Harvey Dondershine Honored at the ACF Appreciation Day

Harvey Dondershine, MD, JD served for many years in various significant roles on the ACF, including his service as Chair of the ACF Council for several years. He received the ACF Distinguished Service Award at the ACF Appreciation Day on April 21, 2018, and gave a short talk related to his important work with veterans suffering from PTSD. Click here to see the presentation of his award and his remarks.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYKik7737Ek&

Dr. Lembke Spoke to ACF at Annual ACF Appreciation Lunchion on April 2nd 2016

Dr. Anna Lembke received her undergraduate degree in Humanities from Yale University and her medical degree from Stanford University. She is on the faculty of the Stanford University School of Medicine, a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and a diplomate of the American Board of Addiction Medicine. She is the Program Director for the Stanford University Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and commentaries, including in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Journal of General Internal Medicine, and Addiction. Dr. Lembke sees patients, teaches, and does research. She is the author of a book on the prescription drug epidemic: “Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop” (Johns Hopkins University Press, October 2016). Dr. Anna Lembke's key areas of interest include treating patients who have become addicted to prescription drugs. She takes a holistic, harm-reduction approach to each patient, and encourages spiritual and alternative therapies in the process of healing. See her in action at Video.

Dr. Eli Merritt Launches Bay Area Suicide Risk Project

Former Stanford resident Dr. Eli Merritt, responding to the fragmented nature of the mental health care system, most notably diminished acute and subacute psychiatric services, launched the Bay Area Suicide Risk Project in the fall of 2014. The project is designed to identify, describe, and share with all interested individuals and organizations vital suicide-related resources to help both health care professionals and concerned family members navigate risk. Most recently, he and his research team released two of three Bay Area wide resource directories, Suicide Risk Emergency Services and Hotlines and Mobile Crisis Services. The third directory, expected in April, will focus on treatment.

Love for the Long Haul

This is a free program to help couples strengthen and improve their relationships, developed by Dr. Barbara White. You can learn more about it by clicking on the title above -- Love for the Long Haul..