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Herschel P. Wall, M.D., interim chancellor of the UTHSC speaks about the MMHI/UT partnership at the opening of the new MMHI building in October.

Part of the effort to expand healthcare services in the medical and biotech district of Memphis includes growing and improving mental health programs. On Oct. 1, the Memphis Mental Health Institute (MMHI) opened the doors to it’s new downtown facility, the result of collaboration between the State of Tennessee and the Memphis medical community, both public and private, to improve the overall quality of pediatric and mental health services in Shelby County.

The 75-bed facility at 951 Court Avenue is fully operational with new equipment and high-tech security systems. The open design allows for enhanced monitoring capabilities and greater accessibility to patient units.

“Having the new facility is really a morale booster for both the staff and the patient,” said Dr. Kayla Fisher, child psychiatrist and clinical director of MMHI. “The colors have all been picked out for mood and affect. When you’re surrounded by a serene environment, it helps people focus on their treatment needs.”

Fisher said they stayed downtown instead of moving east to remain accessible to people who need mental health services the most. MMHI is within the downtown medical district and has a walkway connected to the Regional Medical Center at Memphis.

Included in the collaboration to develop the new facility were the State of Tennessee/Memphis Mental Health Institute, Methodist Healthcare System, The MED, UT Health Science Center, and Shelby County government.

MMHI has partnerships with all area hospitals and is enhancing it’s partnership with UTHSC for additional educational and research programs in psychiatry. UT psychiatric residents and medical students rotate through MMHI monthly while MMHI staff, including Fisher, are volunteer teaching faculty at UT.

“We feel that having a training program really makes us a stronger institution and it benefits the training program at UT as well, because we really have interesting psychiatric patients here,” Fisher maintained. “We have some of the most interesting and challenging patients.”

Those challenging patients, Fisher said, also help with recruiting residents to stay in Memphis.

Not only does the new MMHI facility have a more efficient design and enhanced training collaborations, the staff decided to go tobacco free in the interest of improved health among the themselves and patients. Patients and staff are not allowed to smoke anywhere on campus, even outdoors. In fact, as part of the effort by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities (TDMHDD) and other state organizations to make state and private workplaces smoke free, all regional medical institutes in the state are going tobacco free.

While some psychiatric hospital staff feared going tobacco free would lead to an increase in aggressive incidents and a decrease in admissions, neither has occurred. Patients at MMHI have not been angry about the lack of tobacco.

“Conversely, we’ve had fewer aggressive incidents because [patients] no longer fight over how long the smoking break was or how many were provided in a day, or someone stealing their cigarettes,” Fisher said.

In addition to teaming up with UT and improving medical services at the MED for persons with serious mental illnesses, the result of MMHI’s collaborations and relocation is allowing for expansion at LeBonheur Children’s Medical Center. Ultimately the children’s hospital will see an increase in the number of operating rooms, an expanded emergency department and increased research space.



UT Builds Partnerships in Mental Health Education and Services

The department of psychiatry at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) has been undergoing a transformation with the expansion of their educational and research programs. In the past year new fellowships and residency programs have been developed along with an increase in clinical trials and grant proposals. UTHSC is ready to beef up the specialties of child, geriatric, and emergency room psychiatry as well as programs to aide the underserved in the Memphis area.

Dr. James Greene, professor and interim chair of the UTHSC psychiatry department explained the renewing of partnerships with local hospitals, such as their newly expanded partnership with the Memphis Mental Health Institute (MMHI), will strengthen the mental health industry in Memphis. Greene’s main goal, he said, has been to reinstate the child fellowship program, which was defunct for a few years after the department lost members of the child psychiatry staff. Replenishing the staff permitted Greene to restart the fellowship. In addition, Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center and St. Francis Hospital-Memphis will sponsor two fellows each. He’s also worked to increase the residency program from 16 positions to 24, giving UT six residents a year.

Clinical drug trials are also underway for approximately 20 medications for various disorders like Alzheimer’s, depression, ADHD and autism.

In addition to child psychiatry, there will be a fellowship in geriatric psychiatry beginning in July 2008 with two fellows each going to the Veterans Administration hospital and St. Francis. This is the first geriatric fellowship program for UTHSC.

This is also the first time UT has partnered with St. Francis for psychiatry fellowships. The relationship will expand with the addition of residents in child, geriatric and emergency psychiatry.

“We started with no residents last November and now we have two, and in January we begin the child fellow [at St. Francis] and in July there will be one at Le Bonheur,” explained Greene. “By July we’ll have five trainees at St. Francis where we had none a year ago.”

Director of behavioral health services at St. Francis, Richard I. Feldman, expressed his excitement about expanding the existing relationship with UT.

“The addition of a child and adolescent residency training program at Saint Francis Hospital in 2008 benefits the greater Memphis community by expanding the network of psychiatrists who will specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of disorders affecting this population,” Feldman said.

Greene is also focusing on programs for the underserved youth and minority populations in Memphis. Members of the department have written grants for TLC Family Care Health Plan and the State of Tennessee to develop comprehensive strategies next year that will make care more accessible.




December 2007

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