Personal Statement
I am a child and adolescent psychiatrist with experience in delivering guideline-based care for child and adolescent psychiatric disorders. I am the Medical Director of the Outpatient Psychiatry Clinics at Seattle Children’s, and have experience with training of staff to deliver guideline-based care. I also have health services training, including having obtained a Master of Public Health (MPH) in Health Services and participation in a Primary Care-Psychiatry Research Fellowship funded by the National Institutes of Health.
My clinical work includes treatment of outpatients and inpatients with a variety of mental health needs, and I provide telepsychiatry in our outpatient clinics. I have experience with collaboration with primary care providers to deliver care to pediatric patients, including serving as a consulting psychiatrist on the Partnership Access Line, which provides psychiatric consultation regarding mental health assessment and treatment to pediatricians and other primary care physicians throughout the state of Washington. I have expertise in the treatment of common mental health problems in a pediatric population.
My research has focused on mental health care for common psychiatric illnesses including depression and ADHD, and has included utilization of collaborative models of care and testing of interventions for youth with psychiatric diagnoses. I have been a co-investigator, with R01 PI Kathleen Myers, MD, for a study of guideline-based care provided by telepsychiatry for youth in rural communities with a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
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
Early in my training it became clear that intense pathology transfixed me so inpatient psychiatry was a natural fit. My specific area of expertise within psychiatry is care of the acutely ill hospitalized psychiatric patient. I have also developed clinical expertise in the diagnosis and management of Catatonia. In addition to clinical care, education is another area of interest. I love to teach and it has been the focus of my career. I am intimately involved in the education of psychiatry residents and am a founding faculty member of the Clinician-Teacher Pathway for our residency program. In addition to teaching medical students and residents, I regularly educate primary care providers on detection and treatment of psychiatric illnesses in primary settings. I assumed the role of Vice Chair of Education in 2020 and in that role I oversee all educational efforts for our department.
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 a psychiatrist at the UW Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic (OPC) on Roosevelt, where I see patients for consultation, medication management, and psychotherapy, both individually and with psychiatry residents. I see patients with mood disorders, anxiety disorders, trauma, and complex trauma. I also help answer a consultation line for providers in the state of Washington who have questions about psychiatric medications during the perinatal period.
I serve as an Associate Program Director in the Psychiatry residency, where I help oversee the curriculum. My areas of interests are resident education, psychodynamic psychotherapy, outpatient psychiatry, perinatal psychiatry, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Personal Statement
I have a passion for treating geriatric patients with new onset and longstanding mental health disorders and cognitive disorders. My primary interests are depression and psychotic disorders, especially when these symptoms overlap with cognitive disorders. I value sharing in the life histories of patients and families, the challenging complexity of medical issues as they interact with psychiatric presentations and assisting patients and families in discussions about advanced care planning and end of life issues.
I have particular expertise in working with those living in long term care settings where I have done consultation work.
I have recently joined Harborview’s ethics committee in order to participate in examining difficult clinical, social, and ethical situations which affect patients, families, and staff within the medical system.
Personal Statement
Over the past 20 years, my research has focused on the genetics of schizophrenia and neurodegenerative disorders, particularly on the use of clinical phenotyping and innovative genomic technologies to elucidate the complex genetic architecture underlying schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). I served as the Director of the Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the VA Puget Sound Health (VAPS) from 2011-2022, in order to focus on my research on Alzheimer’s Disease and related disorders. My current research interests are two-pronged: 1) develop machine learning models in VA’s vast electronic health records in order to assign ADRD probability scores in older Black and White Veterans; and 2) use mobile health devices to promote early diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies. In In these capacities, I direct multidisciplinary efforts to better understand the biology, genetics, etiology, prevention, and treatment of these disorders, and I provide clinical expertise for the differential diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders and treatment of behavioral disturbances in dementias.
Personal Statement
My academic research background encompasses a variety of complex neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. During postdoctoral training in San Antonio, I was examining phenotype/genotype correlations of Chromosome 18q- Syndrome. Chromosome 18q- Syndrome is a disorder in which variable size deletions are associated with a range of phenotypes including short stature; intellectual disability; poor muscle tone and developmental alterations of limbs and craniofacial region. Following clinical training in Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, I continued with postdoctoral training in Seattle where I was researching Hereditary Ataxias and Dyslexia. During my time as a Principal Investigator, my lab focused on Autism and Alzheimer’s disorder. Our focus was on rare variants that play a role in familial as opposed to sporadic Autism and late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Currently, my focus is providing clinical care to individuals with Intellectual Disability and Autism Spectrum Disorder. In addition to working at Seattle Children’s Hospital Inpatient Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Unit, I provide diagnostic assessments and medication management at Seattle Children’s Autism Center and consult at Washington State Residential Habilitation Centers.
Personal Statement
Dr. Unützer’s work focuses on improving access to mental health care, integrating mental health and general medical services, and translating research on effective mental health interventions into clinical and public health practice. He has published over 350 scientific papers and is the recipient of numerous federal and foundation grants and awards for his work on integrated behavioral health care. He works with national and international organizations dedicated to improving behavioral health care for diverse populations and he has served as a Scientific Advisor to the World Health Organization and the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.
