Adolescents who are struggling with intense emotional, behavioral and social difficulties may find an alternate care path to an inpatient stay through Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital’s Adolescent Partial Hospitalization Program.

The following is a roundup of the news that made headlines at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2018.

Avni Cirpili, DNP, RN, has returned as Chief Nursing Officer for Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital (VPH) and Vanderbilt Behavioral Health (VBH) after nearly three years as senior vice president and chief nursing officer at the Menninger Clinic in Houston.

Children and young adults without psychosis who are prescribed high-dose antipsychotic medications are at increased risk of unexpected death, despite the availability of other medications to treat their conditions, according to a Vanderbilt University Medical Center study published today in JAMA Psychiatry. Unexpected death includes deaths due to unintentional drug overdose or cardiovascular/metabolic causes.

Stephan Heckers, MD, MSc, William P. and Henry B. Test Professor of Schizophrenia Research and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, was recently recognized by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) with a 2018 Exemplary Psychiatrist Award.

Fibromyalgia patients who regularly visit their physicians are much less likely to attempt suicide than those who do not, according to a new Vanderbilt University Medical Center study published in Arthritis Care & Research.

Two Vanderbilt University researchers have been awarded Blake A. Jenkins Discovery Awards in support of basic and/or translational research into bipolar disorder and related conditions with an emphasis on early detection, intervention and utilizing brain imaging.