Mike Mitchell, visual arts instructor at Father Ryan High School, and Meg Benningfield, MD, MSCI, division director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, have been close friends since their children enrolled in the same kindergarten six years ago.

Vanderbilt’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB-GYN) was recently awarded a $200,000 grant by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (TDMHSAS) to provide increased access to medication-assisted treatment for uninsured women with substance use disorders.

Using data from the UK Biobank and Vanderbilt’s BioVU, a new study in the journal Molecular Psychiatry finds that approximately 4 percent of suicide attempt risk is captured by genotype data.

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.