I am a clinical psychologist by training and an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. I am also a Health Service Research Scientist at the Seattle-Denver HSR&D Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. My research program broadly focuses on bringing a more holistic approach to healthcare (i.e., mind, body, and spirit) and centers around two interconnected areas of investigation: 1) meaning-making and meaning in life among individuals with chronic pain and psychological distress (in particular, PTSD) and 2) developing and testing mind-body interventions that improve physical and emotional health and well-being. I am particularly interested in improving health for older adults and those in rural settings. My work has been supported by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
I am a psychiatrist at the UW. I primarily work at the Long-Term Civil Commitment Unit at Northwest and the consult service at University of Washington Montlake. I see patients with severe mental illness and chronic mental health problems. I also help with the treatment of patients with delirium and medical comorbidities that impact their mental health. I also help plan and give didactics for the Psychiatry residency at UW. My areas of interests are resident education, consult-liason, global mental health, perinatal psychiatry, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
I am currently the Medical Director at the Garvey Institute Center for Neuromodulation and am providing leadership to help grow our portfolio in the area of Neuromodulation and Interventional Psychiatry. Before coming to the UW, I was the Muriel Harris Chair of Geriatric Psychiatry and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at UCLA. While at UCLA, I held many administrative, clinical and teaching leadership positions including serving as Medical Director of Inpatient Geriatric Psychiatry, Chief of Staff of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Founding Faculty of the UCLA Neuromodulation Division, Medical Director of the ECT and Interventional Psychiatry Program, among others.
I recently became Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of ECT and Related Therapies, the official publication of the International Society of ECT and Neurostimulation. My research projects have included investigating various neuromodulation and interventional therapies and developing novel educational programs and curricula. I have an abiding interest in mentoring and helping faculty at the start of their careers and a commitment to fostering the advancement of women and underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in academic medicine.
Areas of clinical practice:
SLU at Fred Hutch Cancer Center and UW Diabetes Institute
My passion and background are working with individuals with serious medical conditions, primarily cancer but also other chronic health conditions. I split my clinical time between FHCC and UW Diabetes Institute. I also passionate about conducting research about existential distress and post-traumatic growth in oncology.
Clinical Approach:
I practice an interpersonal approach to psychotherapy, rather than solely structured one. I enjoy building a collaborative relationship with my patients to identify goals to work on in therapy. I really want our time together to be worthwhile. There’s only so much time and energy someone with a major illness has. I am a big fan of the spoon theory and don’t want to be wasting their spoons. I love to use humor, metaphor and stories. I also find it important to provide space and opportunities to discuss heavier topics related to prognosis, morality, grief and legacy. I enjoy supporting patients with meaning making and trying to answer difficult questions such as “What’s the meaning of all this? How can we help patients live well with what life is remaining?”
Personal History:
I have a small, supportive family with my partner and our dog. Growing up, I was close with my grandparents. My grandfather who lived with Parkinson’s disease for most of my life. Parkinson’s has a lot of physical symptoms, but also mood symptoms. Additionally, he also lived with chronic melanoma and prostate cancer. His health had a large impact on his life, our family, and how I now view quality of life during treatment and at end of life. He always faced challenges and changes in his functioning with humor and creative to continue to engage in active he enjoyed like travel, golf and a fancy meal. Around the time I started graduate school for psychology, he passed away. His legacy influenced me work with people who were living with serious medical conditions or acquired new disability. I want to help patients live with it instead of against it.
Dr. Charles Engel (he/him) is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Core VA HSR&D Investigator in the Seattle Center for Innovation, Codirector of the Center’s Advanced Fellowship on Learning Health Systems, and Adjunct Physician Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation. Engel’s work focuses on trauma-informed health systems and strategies for improving the quality of primary care for chronic mental and physical health conditions. His research has covered traumatic injury and post-trauma syndromes ranging from blast injury, mild traumatic brain injury and Gulf War syndrome to PTSD and depression. Engel is experienced at mixed qualitative and quantitative methods and has led large pragmatic randomized trials, program evaluations, and implementation science studies. He has authored or coauthored nearly 200 scholarly papers, including in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and the American Journal of Psychiatry. Funding for his work has come from the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense and other organizations. Before joining UW Psychiatry and the AIMS Center in 2021, Dr. Engel was Senior Physician Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation from 2013 to 2020 and Associate Chair (Research) at Uniformed Services University’s Department of Psychiatry from 2001-2013. Engel has served on the board of directors of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, has testified twice before Congress, received a number of awards, and delivered invited lectures in over 10 countries. He received both his MD and MPH from the University of Washington.
I am a child and adolescent psychiatrist with experience in delivering evidence based care for youth with psychiatric disorders. My clinical work is primarily in the outpatient setting and I have experience with telehealth, community mental health, consultation to primary care and developing integrated care systems with pediatricians. I am a psychiatrist on the Partnership Access Line, which provides phone consultation regarding diagnosis and treatment to pediatricians and other primary care physicians throughout Washington, Wyoming and Alaska. I have worked as part of an integrated care team by providing consultation in person at Kent-Des Moines and Roosevelt clinics. I have expertise in the treatment of common childhood psychiatric disorders and I am particularly interested in treating anxiety and ADHD. I am also trained in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) and incorporate this background in my work. I value working collaboratively with patients and their families to make a decision about treatment options based on the best evidence we have for safe and effective treatment.
Academically, I have enjoyed being part of the fellowship training program teaching about Integrated Care and currently co-chair the child and adolescent curriculum for the University of Washington Integrated Care Fellowship.
Robert Hilt, MD is a Professor in the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a psychiatrist at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He is the program director for the Partnership Access Line (PAL), a child mental health consultation service for primary care providers in Washington, Wyoming and Alaska. He is the Program Director for the Medicaid Medication Second Opinion Programs of Wyoming, Washington and Alaska, and Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) Psychiatric Consult Service in Wyoming for children in foster care. He has been involved in several collaborative care projects, in school support projects, and has helped to establish a statewide mental health referral service in Washington. Dr. Hilt’s primary interest is to increase professional collaboration between child psychiatrists and pediatric medical providers, and to increase access to high quality care.
Personal Statement
I am an investigator in the Seattle-Denver Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care and Associate Director of the Seattle Center of Excellence in Substance Abuse Treatment and Education (CESATE), one of two national VA centers devoted to improving the quality of care and clinical outcomes of veterans with substance use conditions. I am also a licensed clinical psychologist in Washington State. My primary research interests include evaluating and improving behavioral health and substance use outcomes of Veterans with alcohol and/or drug misuse conditions. I received his PhD from Brigham Young University.
My primary research interests include evaluating and improving behavioral health and substance use outcomes of Veterans with alcohol and/or drug misuse conditions. Ongoing research interests include prevention of alcohol misuse among Veteran populations and development of a collaborative care management intervention for patients with complex, recurrent substance use disorders and high utilization of hospital services. Current projects include evaluating collaborative care management approaches for treating Veterans with complex and chronic substance use disorders, estimating the relative risks of serious adverse events among Veterans with PTSD who are prescribed opioids and benzodiazepines concurrently, evaluating clinical decision support interventions to reduce concurrent use of opioid and benzodiazepine medications among high-risk Veterans and validation of quality indicators for recognition and management of problematic alcohol use, and assessing the recognition and management of alcohol misuse among OEF/OIF Veterans with and without TBI.
Personal Statement
I am a board certified child and adolescent psychiatrist in the Pediatric Clinic at Harborview, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic in the Division of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine.
In my clinical work, I strive to create active partnerships with my patients and their families to achieve the best possible outcomes regardless of their needs and circumstances. I am lucky to have great behavioral health and primary care partners across the different clinics I work in, who are invaluable collaborators in caring for our patients and families.
I am involved in the child and adolescent training program and supervises trainees at several outpatient clinics. My clinical and research interests include integrating mental healthcare into primary care settings, ADHD, disruptive behaviors, aggression, trauma-related disorders, and improving clinical supervision of child and adolescent psychiatry trainees.
