Annual Pub 2022 - Flipbook - Page 20
On the Front Lines of a Mental Health Emergency
by Paul Harasim
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association declared a national state of emergency in child and
adolescent mental health, calling on policy makers and other medical professionals to join them in 昀椀nding creative
ways to help children facing physical isolation, ongoing uncertainty, fear and grief.
Lisa Durette, MD, a Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,
didn’t need to be asked. She was already leading a team of child psychiatrists who provide a unique model of care
through telephonic and televideo consultation, where real time mental health care expertise is shared with family,
pediatric and primary care physicians who call them when troubled youth show up at their o昀케ces.
Called the Pediatric Access Line (PAL), used only by medical professionals, it is similar to a state program 昀椀rst
begun in Massachusetts. A Mental Health Block Grant won by Durette supports the project.
“We know there is a giant shortage of child psychiatrists and this is a way to provide more access,” says Dr. Durette.
This isn’t the 昀椀rst time Durette, who has had to 昀椀ght 昀椀ve bouts with cancer, has worked to overcome Nevada’s dubious distinction of being among the states with the fewest mental health services in the country,
In 2012, Durette opened a psychiatric center in Las Vegas, the Healthy Minds outpatient treatment facility. In 2013,
she began to increase the number of child psychiatrists in Nevada by founding and directing the two-year fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry that is now part of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine.
“The PAL program also helps with stigma problems,” she says. “Many parents are reluctant to take their children
to a mental health professional because of the unfortunate stigma involved with mental health. This way they can
keep their child in the primary care home and still get the mental health help their child needs.”
Durette’s PAL team is largely derived from doctors who completed the fellowship she founded as well as from
health professionals from the Center for Community Solutions and Chicanos por la Causa.
Not surprisingly, COVID-19 and its resulting isolation of children has made the need for assistance more acute.
A call to PAL generally results in physicians receiving assistance within 30 minutes, so the patient is still at the
doctor’s o昀케ce when a treatment plan is discussed. Dr. Durette and two physicians in her fellowship program, Colin
Freedman, MD, and Chau Pham, DO, along with a contracted child psychiatrist Amanda King, MD, are key 昀椀gures in
the sharing of psychiatric information. Alba Perez, Angela Townsend and Brooklyn Ives, of Chicanos por la Causa,
coordinate the care.
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KIRK KERKORIAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UNLV
SUMMER 2022
