Dr. Russell’s professional interests include ADHD, integrated/collaborative care, prevention and complementary/integrative approaches to child and adolescent mental health. He takes a holistic approach to psychiatric well-being that extends beyond medications and psychotherapy to include other evidence-based practices shown to improve brain health including regular exercise, time in nature, supportive social interactions, mind-body activities, good nutrition and sleep hygiene.
I am a board certified psychiatrist and work at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. I am a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. I obtained a fellowship in consultation-liaison psychiatry, a specialty that focuses on providing psychiatric care for people with complex medical conditions. My primary clinical focus is people with cancer.
I love my work. Being ill is a vulnerable time and my goal is to ease suffering and provide a sense of connection and understanding for all I work with. I believe in working collaboratively with patients and families. We work together to identify what the goals of treatment are. I have expertise in diagnosis, psychopharmacology and psychotherapy and adapt my recommendations to best serve the goals of the person before me.
I am also passionate about education. I am the site director at Fred Hutch Cancer Center for our Psycho-oncology Fellowship Program. I supervise Cl fellows, addiction fellows, psychiatry residents and provide education to social workers and psychology trainees.
I am a consultation-liaison psychiatrist and health services researcher in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Rehabilitation Medicine and Epidemiology. I am also Medical Director of the Department of Psychosocial Oncology at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.
My research interests are in psychiatric epidemiology, health services research, psychiatric oncology, and neuropsychiatry. In my clinical practice, I use a comprehensive, multifaceted approach that may include medications or counseling to help patients achieve their goals. My primary interest is helping people who are coping with medical illness. I am particularly interested in developing better approaches to delivering person-centered psychiatric care to these populations.
My research focuses on understanding the development of neural circuits that contributing to and underlie social development. Our lab uses a number of different tools: primarily electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs), but also eye tracking, cardiophysiology (EKG), neuroimaging, and behavioral measures to study how infants, children, and adults perceive, attend and learn about their social environment. Our projects also focus on the development and validation of biomarkers that may be used to understand the course of development and treatment response in children with disruption in social and communication function such as autism spectrum disorder, 16p11.2 deletion syndrome, and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
I have pursued a career at the intersection of mental health and primary care, training in both family medicine and addiction psychiatry. I currently practice in various integrated care settings as a consulting psychiatrist and in the outpatient adult psychiatry clinic. I am the co-medical director for the University of Washington Psychiatry and Addiction Case Conference (UW PACC), a weekly online learning collaborative to help community providers across the state improve their psychiatric and addiction clinical skills. My area of interest is focused on improving addiction and psychiatric treatment to primary care settings. I also spend a significant amount of time training both family medicine and psychiatry trainees and fellows on integrated treatments for substance use disorders.
As a geriatric psychiatrist, my professional interests revolve around improving the quality of lives for people with dementia, dementia-related psychiatric symptoms, and their caregivers. I provide direct clinical care as a psychiatrist at the VA Puget Sound, and I am involved in projects addressing dementia-related agitation. As the UW geriatric psychiatry fellowship director, I also recognize that training the next generation of geriatric psychiatrists is vital in order to meet the growing population needs in geriatrics.
I am a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. I received my MD from New York University and completed my adult residency at the Harvard Massachusetts General Hospital/McLean Hospital program where I was chief resident. I then went on to complete a fellowship in psychosomatic medicine at the University of Washington. I am currently on faculty at Harborview Medical Center on the inpatient psychiatry consult service.
I have a longstanding interest in the intersection between medicine and psychiatry, and am the author of numerous published articles on topics ranging from the neuropsychiatric effects of steroids to managing borderline personality disorder in the primary care setting. I have a particular interest in the use of electroconvulsive therapy, including in the treatment of catatonia. I am currently involved in research projects in conjunction with the division of nephrology and the neurosurgery department. In addition to my clinical and research interests, I am also an associate program director for the UW Adult Psychiatry Residency at Harborview Medical Center.
As a clinical neuropsychologist who has specialized in aging, I have over 20 years of experience in the field of geriatrics. My clinical work and research has been focused on the full continuum of cognitive aging – from neurodegenerative disease of varied etiologies to healthy brain aging into the 90s and beyond. I have been based at the VA Puget Health Care System since 2008. In this time, I have developed additional and complementary interests in the older adult Veteran who has PTSD, especially how this disorder can interfere with cognition and might contribute to decline and also in the area of reducing disparities in neuropsychological care for individuals who are transgender and gender diverse. Currently, I am the Associate Director for Education and Evaluation for the VISN 20 Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) at VA Puget Sound. I am a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. Provision of training for future geriatric care providers (MD, PhD, RN, SW, etc) is an important part of my personal mission. I also enjoy connecting with the older adult community through various events and at local senior centers.