Hospital-based psychiatry for medically complex adults.

Current role

• Provide high-volume initial and follow-up psychiatric consultations across hospital-based medical, surgical, ICU, neurology, oncology, and addiction medicine settings.
• Evaluate and help manage delirium, catatonia, psychosis, mood disorders, suicide risk, capacity concerns, acute agitation, and substance use or withdrawal presentations.
• Coordinate voluntary and involuntary psychiatric admissions and related documentation.
• Collaborate with primary medical teams, nursing, social work, families, and interdisciplinary teams to support safe, practical, patient-centered psychiatric care.
• Developed PA student curriculum on acute psychiatric decompensations and substance use disorders.

Clinical practice areas

Inpatient and acute psychiatry

Acute psychiatric assessment, stabilization, risk stratification, behavioral emergency management, medication review, disposition planning, voluntary and involuntary admission coordination, and interdisciplinary care planning.

Consultation-liaison psychiatry

Psychiatric care embedded in medical, surgical, ICU, neurology, oncology, addiction medicine, and other hospital services, with a focus on translating complex psychiatric findings into practical medical-team recommendations.

Medically complex psychiatric care

Management of psychiatric symptoms complicated by severe medical illness, cognitive change, dementia-related behaviors, cancer care, trauma history, polypharmacy, withdrawal states, and medical-psychiatric comorbidity.

Professional overview

Board-certified Physician Assistant with the NCCPA Certificate of Added Qualifications in Psychiatry (CAQ-Psych), practicing hospital-based psychiatric care for medically complex adults.

My clinical work includes psychiatric consultation and treatment planning for patients with delirium, catatonia, acute agitation, psychosis, mood disorders, anxiety, suicide risk, decision-making capacity concerns, substance use disorders, alcohol/opioid/benzodiazepine withdrawal, dual diagnosis, and psychiatric symptoms arising during severe medical illness or hospitalization.

Clinical approach

Acute confusion, anxiety, mood change, or behavioral disruption during serious illness is often biological, treatable, and not a personal failing. My goal is to reduce distress, preserve cognition, support families, and help the medical plan move forward safely.

Background

Earlier training and clinical experience include inpatient psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, veterans’ mental health, PTSD, substance use disorders, consultation-liaison psychiatry exposure, ECT and esketamine exposure, detox/SUD care, emergency department work, EMT practice, and broad PA training across medicine, infectious disease, emergency medicine, surgery, family medicine, pediatrics, and OB/GYN.

Before medicine, I spent twelve years as a mathematical statistician and federal research project officer at the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. That background informs my evidence-based, systems-aware approach to psychiatric assessment, documentation, and care coordination.