Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Opportunity:

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), and the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute (PRI) are seeking an innovative, strategic leader to be the Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.  This position offers the opportunity to lead our well-established division (est.1955), its innovative clinical programs, and it’s well staffed faculty into the future. This includes serving the needs of the children and families of Arkansas, supporting a large, dynamic tertiary-care children’s hospital system composed of two hospitals, and a state-wide Clinically Integrated Pediatric Network. We are looking for a Director to develop and extend significant research programs at both PRI and the Arkansas Children Hospital Research Institute.  The Director will participate in and lead the child and adolescent portion of an exceptionally strong psychiatry education program that is one of the leading undergraduate and graduate medical education programs in the region.  Additionally, he/she will help develop and extend our nationally recognized digital health program and be a leader in our UAMS PRI that is prized by our state and sponsoring institutions.

This is a key leadership role in PRI, the Department, and ACH; and the opportunity to guide the development of not only the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, but also to have a significant impact on an entire state.  Leaders at UAMS, ACH, and PRI will especially welcome applications from underrepresented minorities as we seek to extend our diversity and inclusivity.

All inquiries, nominations and applications for the position of Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry are welcome.

About the Department of Psychiatry: 

The Department of Psychiatry is very well respected and the third largest department in our College of Medicine with 84 faculty members.  All three of the UAMS’ missions of education, research, and clinical care are well supported by the Department.  In addition, a number of faculty members serve in significant leadership roles for the University (Provost’s office and elsewhere) and College of Medicine (several Associate Dean’s and former Dean).  The faculty have active teaching and clinical roles at the large Central Arkansas Veterans Health System and the Arkansas State Hospital as well as University Hospital and Arkansas Children’s Hospital.    

About the Child and Adolescent Division:

The Child and Adolescent Division has a long and notable history that includes an exemplary clinical practice. The division has helped generations of children and families through ground breaking research regarding the inheritance of mental illness and some of the earliest descriptions and electrophysiology of what came to be known as Attention Deficit Disorder.

The Division’s faculty and staff work within several clinical programs, briefly described here.  The Child Study Center is a general and subspecialty outpatient program on the ACH campus, last year providing 8,260 outpatient visits.  In addition, we serve a large and growing consultation service at ACH.  The STRIVE program, a school based program, operates from a central office with clinical sites in 18 public schools across three school districts.  The Child Diagnostic Unit, an intensive inpatient intermediate term diagnostic unit with 10 beds is housed in the Psychiatric Research Institute, a unit of University Hospital.  ACH is currently developing digital and in-person consultation services at Arkansas Children’s Hospital Northwest located in Springdale, Arkansas.  The northwest region is the fastest growing and most affluent portion of the state. In the near future, a primary care behavioral health program with multiple sites across the Little Rock metropolitan area will be part of our clinical program.  There is also a planned expansion across the state within the Arkansas Children’s Clinically Integrated Network.

The research programs in the division and across the Department of Psychiatry include programs focusing on brain development in children and adolescents using fMRI (PRI’s Brain Imaging Research Center 3 Tesla scanner, Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute’s 3 Tesla MRI and newly installed MEG [Magnetoencephalography], and a state of the art electrophysiology/sleep research laboratory). We have extensive addictions research which also includes substantial program focus on child development following fetal exposure to opioids and methamphetamine (two of our C&A psychiatrists are addiction trained). Our department has one of the largest and most comprehensive health services and implementation research groups in the nation; as well as NIH, academic, and pharmaceutical sponsored clinical trials. In addition to numerous NIH grants, the department also hosts a large, multi-year NIH sponsored T32 research training grant primarily focused on addiction and brain sciences.

The division participates extensively in our educational programs with our medical school consistently being in the top 10 medical schools in the nation for the percentage of students entering the field of psychiatry.  Our residency program is regionally prominent with a robust number of applicants, many of whom choose to match with us because of the quality of our Child and Adolescent Program.  Consequently, our Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship has more high quality applicants than we can admit (3 per year) with the potential to expand that number should the division elect to do so.  More than half of our graduating fellows enter academic medicine.

The faculty of the division is strong with all currently authorized positions filled.  Currently, there are six board certified/board eligible primary faculty in the division and another six child and adolescent psychiatry faculty members who participate in the division.  Its future growth is anticipated.

About the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute

The UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute (PRI) is 11 years old and occupies a gorgeous ~100,000 square foot building.  It is contiguous to University Hospital and is one of only a handful in the nation that houses clinical care, research, and education under one roof.  The clinical programs at UAMS are organized as service lines within the Integrated Clinical Enterprise. PRI is part of the Behavioral Health Service Line that has numerous sites including the Child Study Center, STRIVE, and the Child Diagnostic Unit.  The Director of the Service Line is the department’s Vice Chair for Clinical Services.  PRI provides mostly sub-specialty services, many of which are not available elsewhere in the state/region: interventional services, specialty women’s mental health programs, a large trauma program, and genetics/genomics clinics. PRI’s outpatient programs had a total of 65,000 visits for FY18 and 1,667 inpatient admissions.

About Arkansas Children’s Hospital

Arkansas Children’s Hospital is the only hospital system in the state solely dedicated to caring for children, which allows the organization to uniquely shape the landscape of pediatric care in Arkansas. The system includes a 359-bed hospital in Little Rock, with 15,277 discharges in 2018.  ACH provides the state’s only Pediatric Level 1 Trauma Center, Burn Center, Level 4 Neonatal Intensive Care and Pediatric Intensive Care Units, a Research Institute and a nationally recognized trauma transport service. Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) has joined the elite six percent of hospitals in the world that have Magnet Status. Magnet recognition from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) is the most prestigious distinction a healthcare organization can receive for nursing excellence and quality patient outcomes. It is one of the 25 largest children’s hospitals in the United States and is nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report in four specialties (2017-18): Pediatric Cardiology & Heart Surgery, ranked No. 37; Neonatology, No. 38; Pediatric Pulmonology, ranked No. 47; and Pediatric Urology, ranked No. 48.

A sister campus, Arkansas Children’s Northwest, recently opened and has 233,613 square feet which includes 24 inpatient beds, clinic rooms, and provides emergency and diagnostic services to children in that corner of the state. Arkansas Children’s Hospital also blankets the state with outreach programs that include telemedicine, mobile health, school-based health solutions and a new Arkansas Children’s Health Network (CIN). A private nonprofit, Arkansas Children’s Hospital boasts an internationally renowned reputation for medical breakthroughs and intensive treatments, unique surgical procedures and forward-thinking research. ACH is committed to providing every child with access to the best care available, regardless of location or resources. Founded as an orphanage, Arkansas Children’s Hospital has championed children by making them better today and healthier tomorrow for more than 100 years.

About the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS):

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is the state’s only academic health sciences center, comprised of five health professions colleges (Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions, and Public Health), a graduate school, six institutes, eight Regional Centers (six of which include family medicine practices and residency programs), and a comprehensive Medical Center.  Its College of Medicine has held a unique and vital role in Arkansas for 140 years. UAMS is the largest public employer in the state of Arkansas with more than 11,000 employees. UAMS and its clinical affiliates: Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the VA Medical Center are an economic engine for the state with an annual economic impact of $3.92 billion.  Centrally located within the state, UAMS’s Little Rock campus is a tertiary referral center and the only Level 1 adult Trauma Center and Comprehensive Stroke Center for Arkansas.

Role & Responsibilities:

• Lead the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the academic home of all UAMS/ACH Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists
• Participate in the leadership of the UAMS Psychiatric Institute (PRI) and the Department of Psychiatry
• Lead as the Section Chief of Psychiatry at Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) and participate fully in the development of behavioral health at ACH and its Clinically Integrated Network
• Continue the development of the Division and its role at ACH, PRI, and UAMS
• Lead or see to the leadership of all education, clinical, and/or research activities of the Division
• Development the regional and national reputation of the division
• Effectively mentor division faculty to develop his/her academic career.