Welcome to our website Here you can become acquainted with our faculty, their particular interests and become acquainted with our current residents. You will also find descriptions of our clinical services, residency program, medical student clerkship and specialty programs.
W. Vaughn McCall, MD, MS Chair, Professor, Medical Director of Sleep Center

Resident Life

Director's Welcome

Hal W. Elliott, MD Assistant Professor, Director of Psychiatry Residency Training Program

Thank you for your interest in the General Psychiatry Residency Program, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine of Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Accredited in 1950 as Bowman Gray Department of Psychiatry, the Wake Forest Residency Training Program has a long history of balanced training in Biologic Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. Our graduates are represented in areas of practice that include Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Forensic Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Geriatric Psychiatry. Many of our residents have elected to take their Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowships in our Department's program.   more »

 

Message from the Chief Residents

	Shannon Pitts, MD Chief Resident		Obinna Ikwechegh, MD Chief Resident

Welcome to the Wake Forest University general psychiatry training program! We are honored to be the co-chief residents for 2008-2009 and would like to provide you with a closer look at our residency training program, especially from a resident perspective.

During the first year of residency training, interns complete six months of adult inpatient psychiatry on the adult inpatient unit at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (WFUBMC), and six months of off-service work (two months of outpatient neurology at WFUBMC, two months of outpatient general medicine at the VA medical center in Salisbury, one month of outpatient pediatrics at a local hospital-run satellite clinic and one month of emergency medicine at WFUBMC).   more »

Psychiatry Residency Program Overview Video

This video is a two part series providing an introduction to the Psychiatry Residency Program at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston Salem, North Carolina.
view »

  

Residency Training News

• We are pleased to announce the names of the new 2009-2010 Residents to the Department of Psychiatry.

• Mohammed Ahmed (Al-Ameen Medical College, India)
• Aaron Albert (Wake Forest University School of Medicine)
• Nathan M. Carter (Howard University College of Medicine)
• Jessica Cipoletti Derreberry (Marshall University School of Medicine)
• Tara-Willow Ferren (Wake Forest University School of Medicine
• Omar Rana (Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine)
• Steve Sand (Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine)
• Lao Yang (University of Minnesota Medical School)
  

• Rasheed Onafuye, MD began a Sleep Medicine Fellowship at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in July. He has spent his fourth year elective studying Sleep Medicine under Dr. Vaughn McCall, Department Chair. Dr. Onafuye was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. He attended the Rostov State Medical University in Moscow and is fluent in Russian. Following medical school, he spent the next three years in general practice. Prior to beginning his residency, he obtained an MPH from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

• Joseph Williams, MD, from Fort Thomas, KY, a graduate of University of Kentucky School of Medicine, served during his senior year as CoChief Resident with Kara Emerson, MD, has started a Forensic Fellowship at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC.

• Brenda Harris, MD, originally from Dade City, FL, a graduate of The University of Florida, College of Medicine, has begun a Child/Adolescent Fellowship at the University of Alabama – Birmingham School of Medicine.

• Jen Wilpret, DO and Frantz Pierre, MD matriculated into our Child/Adolescent Fellowship in July, 2008. Ryan Livingston, MD and Asha Davis, MD began their Fellowship in July, 2009. Dr. Wilpret has taken a special interest in Hypnotherapy. She attended the 25th Annual WVU Hypnosis Workshop, "The 'Art' in the Science of Health in October.

• Rod Ruperto, MD, joined the faculty in July after completing his Child/Adolescent Fellowship as the Associate Training Director. He also serves as the Medical Director of Crossroads Behavioral Healthcare and as the Outpatient Psychiatrist for Child and Adolescent care at The Children's Home, WinstonSalem, NC.

• We are pleased to announce that our Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Program has been re-accredited by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology for 5 years.

• Our Psychiatry Endowment Fund, having reached $50,000, began supporting the cost of membership in the American Psychiatric Association for all of our residents. For more information please see Psychiatry Education Endowment Fund.

• Our General and Child and Adolescent training program is currently recruiting. Those interested in the General Psychiatry program or the Child and Adolescent training program should contact Sheila Leach at saleach@wfubmc.edu.

 

Faculty & Research News

Dr. Vaughn McCall was presented with the Hargrove Award by the North Carolina Psychiatric Association at it’s annual meeting in in September 2009. The Hargrove Award is presented annually to a North Carolina psychiatrist who has made a contribution to psychiatric research. This is the first time in nearly a 30 year history of the award that it was presented to a faculty member of Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

 

 

Dr. Vaughn McCall, Professor and Chairman, and Dr. Peter Rosenquist, Associate Professor, participated in a longitudinal study to determine the efficacy of continuing antidepressant medication along with the administration of Electroconvulsive Therapy. The results were published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, July 2009.

 

Donald Peters, MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, was awarded the "Loretta Y. Silvia Teaching Award" for clinical excellence, courage and compassion at the annual resident graduation dinner dance on Saturday evening, May 30, 2009. This annual award voted on and presented by the residents honors the memory of Dr. Silvia, a loved and respected member of the faculty for 17 years.

 

Hal Elliott, MD, Director of the Adult Residency Training Program, was given the Irma Bland award for "Excellence in Teaching Residents" at the 2009 Annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, San Francisco. This award is given annually to Psychiatry Educators who have made significant and lasting contributions to resident education. Dr. Elliott has been Director since January, 2007 previously serving as the Director of Psychiatry Inpatient Services.

 

Gretchen Brenes, PhD recent publications:

Insomnia in older adults with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 17, 465-472. Brenes, G.A., Miller, M.E., Stanley, M.A., Williamson, J.D., Knudson, M., & McCall, W.V. (2009).

Racial differences in self-rated health at similar levels of physical functioning: An examination of health pessimism in the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 64, 87-94. Spencer, S.M., Schulz, R., Rooks, R.N., Albert, S.M., Thorpe, R.J., Brenes, G.A., Harris, T.B., Koster, A., Satterfield, S., Ayonayon, H.N., & Newman, A. B. (2009)

Feasibility and acceptability of bibliotherapy and telephone sessions for the treatment of late-life anxiety disorders. Clinical Gerontologist. Brenes, G.A., McCall, V.M., Williamson, J.D., & Stanley, M.A. (In press).

Obesity and onset of significant depressive symptoms: Results from a community-based cohort of older men and women. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Vogelzangs, N., Kritchevsky, S.B., Beekman, A.T.F., Brenes, G.A., Newman, A.B., Satterfield, S., Yaffe, K., Harris, T.B., & Penninx, B.W.J.H. (In press).

 

Dr. Burton Reifler was named the first Kate Mills Snider Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine. This Professorship is supported through the Geriatric Psychiatry Outreach (GO) Program, made possible by a generous gift from the Snider family in honor of their mother, Kate Mills Snider. The GO Program provides geriatric psychiatry housecalls for older persons with mobility limitations.

 

The website of the American Hospital Association has featured a story on the Geriatric Outreach Program, "Meeting the Mental Health Needs of the Elderly Homebound through a Geriatric Psychiatry Outreach Program Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC." The article details the difficulties of many elderly patients getting to a health care setting to receive treatment due to frailty, disability, physical illness, or psychiatric illness. To meet the needs of these patients, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center established an outreach program for the frail elderly who need psychiatric services in their homes." Read the story to see how the Geriatric Outreach Program helps to meet the needs of the homebound elderly.

 

The American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) has created a new AAGP Deirdre Johnston Award for Excellence and Innovation in Geriatric Mental Health Outreach Services to encourage programs to provide and/or expand services for meeting the mental health needs of the frail elderly in their homes. The association will grant $10,000 to a program based on its excellence and/or innovation in providing mental health services to older adults in the community.

This annual award is made possible by a generous gift from Arnold H. Snider to the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation, which with the association oversees the award. This award is named in honor of geriatric psychiatrist Deirdre Johnston, MBChB, MRCPsych, in gratitude for the care she provided to Kate Mills Snider, Mr. Snider’s mother. Mr. Snider and his wife, Katherine, have endowed the Kate Mills Snider Geropsychiatry Outreach Program and Professorship Fund within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. View press release.

Deirdre Johnston MB BCh BAO MRCPsych was formerly a member of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, now with Johns Hopkins University.