Personal Statement
My clinical service and research focuses on the interaction of mental and physical illness, especially in patients with chronic pain. Much of my research in recent decades has focused on the risks of treating chronic pain with opioids. I have developed educational programs and outcome tracking tools to assist with opioid treatment of chronic pain. I have published a book about patient empowerment in chronic disease care, The Patient as Agent of Health and Health Care (Oxford, 2017). I have another book written with Jane Ballantyne forthcoming, The Right to Pain Relief and other deep roots of the opioid epidemic (Oxford, 2022).
Personal Statement
My primary interests are in diagnostic evaluation, psychiatric methods, psychosomatic medicine, fatigue syndromes, pain disorders, abnormal illness behaviors, and human temperament and personality. I have conducted research jointly with colleagues at the University of Washington and the University of Washington Twin Registry on chronic widespread pain, depression and related phenomena.
Personal Statement
I am a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist who has served for over 20 years as the attending psychiatrist on the middle-schooler unit at Child Study and Treatment Center. I also serve, 25% time , as “College Mentor” in the UW School of Medicine Introduction to Clinical Medicine Curriculum where I mentor six students in each UW SoM class through their four year curriculum. I serve as preceptor/supervisor for one CAP fellow during their rotation at CSTC. I also run the elective clerkship for fourth year medical students (approximately 10 students/year) during 2 and 4 week rotations at CSTC.
Personal Statement
As a clinical and forensic psychiatrist, my professional roles include being the Director of the UW Center for Mental Health, Policy, and the Law; Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry; and a Staff Psychiatrist at the VA Puget Sound. I hold multiple board certifications: Psychiatry, Forensic Psychiatry, Brain Injury Medicine, and Sports and Performance Psychiatry. In addition to my medical training, I earned my law degree from the University of Washington.
As a member of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL), I serve on the Ethics, Research, and Resident Education Committees and I twice earned AAPL’s Young Investigator Award. I am the Legal Digest Editor for the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.
I have served as an expert witness or consultant in legal cases involving criminal and civil competencies; criminal responsibility; malpractice; personal injury; sexual and gender harassment; and fitness for duty, among others. I teach courses in forensic mental health at the University of Washington and speak locally and nationally on topics related to psychiatry and the law.
Personal Statement
My lab’s focus is reward processing, how it differs under behavior phenotypes that are more vulnerable or resilient to mental illness and how it is changed by psychiatric pathology. Our primary focus is dopamine transmission and the circuits in which is participates.
We developed tools that allow us to track dopamine with sub-second resolution in animals over the course of months (Clark et al, Nat Methods, 2010). This approach allows us to study trajectories of precise neurochemical encoding of behaviors over the course of the development of symptomology and subsequent treatment in animal models of disease. We also have adapted this technology for intraoperative recording in humans (Kishida et al, PLoS One, 2011).
Our research highlights include contributions in the area of dopamine’s role in learning (Flagel et al, Nature, 2012), decision making (Gan et al, Nat Neurosci, 2010) and goal navigation (Howe et al, Nature, 2013). We have gleaned information on how stress impacts appetitive motivation (Wanat et al, Nat Neurosci, 2013), how adolescent alcohol use produces enhanced risk taking later in life (Clark et al, PLoS One, 2012), and identified biological mechanisms for the motivational shift in stress-induced depressive disorders (Lemos et al, Nature, 2012) and the switch to excessive drug intake in substance abuse (Willuhn et al, Nat Neurosci, 2014).
These approaches have attracted a large number of collaborations, including National Academy members Akil, Palmiter, Graybiel and Kandel.
Personal Statement
I completed my Residency in Psychiatry with the UW in 1982 and since then have worked at Harborview Medical Center in the Psychiatry Department. I am a Clinical Associate Professor and provide weekend and on-call coverage for 5MB on the Intensive Psychiatric Unit.
Personal Statement
I am Co-Director of the VA VISN 20 (Northwest Network) Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC). I am also the Friends of Alzheimer’s Research Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine and am Associate Director of the UW Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. My research over the past 30 years has addressed cognitive and behavioral problems and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers in neurodegenerative dementing disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. More recently, my research has focused on combat trauma posttraumatic stress disorder and the clinical phenomenology as well as neuroimaging and CSF biomarkers of neurodegeneration in combat blast concussion mild traumatic brain injury and in Gulf War Veterans Illness. I continue to conduct single site as well as multi-site large scale studies of CSF biomarkers and pharmacological treatment trials for behavioral disorders and traumatic brain injury.
Summary of my research program:
Blast Concussion Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI)
Strategies: multimodal neuroimaging: structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (diffusion tensor imaging [DTI], DTI tractography, macromolecular proton fraction mapping, resting state and task-based functional MRI; susceptibility-weighted imaging, FDG-positron emission tomography [PET]; cerebrospinal fluid and plasma biomarkers; genetic risk factors; clinical, neurocognitive and behavioral assessments,
Gulf War Veterans Illness (GWVI)
Strategies: multimodal neuroimaging and CSF and plasma biomarkers as described above, epigenetics, pain sensitivity testing and ability to activate endogenous opioid systems, and functional activity of paraoxonase I, the enzyme that metabolizes organophosphate insecticides.
Cerebrospinal Fluid and Plasma Biomarkers of Neurodegeneration Strategies: Bead-based multiplex assays using Luminex and Meso-Scale platforms, Quanterix ultra-sensitive platform, and broad-scale mass spectrometry for measurement of proteins, circulating RNAs, microRNAs in collaboration with VA/UW and Institute for Systems Biology investigators.
Pharmacologic Treatment of Disruptive Agitation in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)
Strategies: Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study multi-center randomized placebo-controlled trial of the alpha-1 adrenoreceptor antagonist, prazosin, for treatment of disruptive agitation in AD.
Personal Statement
My areas of expertise are perinatal psychiatry, psychotherapy and collaborative care.
Thank you for your interest in learning more about me! My name is Dr. Ruth Varkovitzky (she/her) and I am a licensed clinical psychologist. I use a culturally sensitive evidence based approach in my clinical work; combining the best science while tailoring therapy to each individual. In the spirit of providing the highest quality of care possible, I am board certified in Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology.
I specialize in providing therapy for trauma and sleep disorders, such as PTSD and insomnia. In addition, I offer a variety of treatments to address problems with depression, anxiety, and OCD. Supporting folks with these challenges is my passion; it’s an honor to work alongside my clients and see them heal and grow.
Public service has always been part of my journey, including collaboration with shelters for survivors of domestic violence, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and the Washington State Board of Psychologist Examiners. In addition to my passion for clinical work, I’ve enjoyed contributing to psychological science through academic and media publications. I established my private practice Renewal Psychology to offer my services to clients in Washington as well as the many state members of the Psychology Interjurisdictional Compact (PSYPACT).
I welcome being connected! Please reach out to me by email at: drruth@renewalpsych.com.
I am a clinical psychologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital and UW Medicine, where my work primarily consists of clinical care and teaching. My two areas of focus are the provision of effective, trauma-informed treatment for youth and families in suicidal crises and the promotion of equitable access to behavioral healthcare.
