MIRECC / CoE

2021 BEST Fellows

The Building Educational Scholarship in psychiatry Training (BEST) program encourages psychiatry residents to enter post-residency research training fellowships in VISNs 16 and 17. Directed by Dr. Ali Abbas Asghar-Ali, the program recognizes talented residents with academic interests and offers consultative experiences in mental health research careers. Awardees attend a national scientific meeting, get a stipend for books or tuition, and work with a career mentor. Congratulations to our 2021 fellows!

Audrey Eichenberger, MD

Dr. Eichenberger is a second-year psychiatry resident at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She was raised in Dallas, Texas and attended Texas A&M College of Medicine for medical school. In medical school, she engaged with older patient populations through her work with the palliative care department and geriatric psychiatry during an away rotation at UT Southwestern. As she grew to appreciate the behavioral and psychological manifestations of neurocognitive disorders and the effect that these symptoms have on patients' caregivers, she became passionate about working with older adults and their families. Dr. Eichenberger plans to pursue a fellowship in geriatric psychiatry and career in academic psychiatry. She is currently engaged in research on new onset psychosis in older adults and is involved in the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry Scholars Program.

 

Barley Halton, MD

Dr. Halton is a second-year psychiatry resident at Tulane University. Born and raised in the Netherlands, he immigrated to the U.S. where he received his BA in English literature from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. Dr. Halton then attended the University of Queensland Ochsner Clinical School in Brisbane, Australia and New Orleans, LA before accepting an adult psychiatry residency position at Tulane University. His research interests include exploring the importance of mental health in a palliative care setting and its impact on overall quality of life. After residency, Dr. Halton is interested in pursuing a fellowship in palliative care and hospice medicine. Afterwards, he hopes to split his time between working on an inpatient psychiatric unit and staffing on a palliative care consult service.

 

Henry Heisey, MD

Dr. Heisey is a second-year psychiatry resident at Baylor College of Medicine. He received his MD at the Marshall University School of Medicine. His passion in medicine is to explore interdisciplinary mechanisms, both at the biological level and in the delivery of patient care. He is interested in the many uncharted ways that metabolic and hormonal milieus interface with psychiatric outcomes during the aging process and believes that caring for the numerous psychiatric patients with comorbid illnesses demands increased partnership across medical disciplines.

 

Su Hyun Kim, MD

Dr. Kim is a second-year psychiatry resident training in LSU Shreveport’s Psychiatry program and is interested in behavioral addiction research. Originally from South Korea, Dr. Kim received a BS in biology at Stanford University and completed medical education at the Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine in South Korea. Going into psychiatry residency, she wanted to learn more about addictions and was interested in teaching psychiatry. She enjoys interacting with medical students during their rotations and has recently participated in a lecture to the Shreveport Police Department on schizophrenia and psychosis and a lecture to residents on sex and the brain and social attachment. She also presented a grand rounds on introduction to behavioral addictions in March.

 

Gregory Jones, MD

Dr. Jones is a second-year psychiatry resident at The University of Texas in Houston, where he also attended medical school. Leveraging prior research experience in immunology and stem cell therapy for traumatic brain injuries, he is currently investigating the neuroinflammatory properties of serotonergic hallucinogens in vitro at The M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, with the eventual goal of starting a clinical trial using psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to treat patients with cancer-related anxiety and depression. Ultimately, Dr. Jones hopes to build a clinical research career using these compounds to ameliorate a wider range of neuropsychiatric disorders, including those highly endemic to VA populations.

 

Karina Sanders, MD

Dr. Sanders is a second-year psychiatry resident at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). She received her BS in chemistry at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and attended UAMS for medical school. Dr. Sanders is most interested in women's mental health/reproductive psychiatry, including peripartum substance use. Experiences in her Women's Mental Health Program have provided unique learning opportunities and furthered her interest in this patient population. Her research interest is trauma-focused care in women. She is currently engaged in research assessing the rates of trauma exposure and probable PTSD among patients on an acute psychiatric women's inpatient unit, with goals of providing more accurate diagnoses, targeted treatment, and trauma-focused interventions. She plans to pursue a career in academic medicine.

 

Last updated: April 21, 2021