Summary
My research focus is in the two fields of Addiction Psychiatry, especially alcoholism research, and Transplant Psychiatry. In Addiction Psychiatry, I am currently developing a model of addiction treatment incorporating the most effective psychosocial and pharmacotherapies of addiction and monitoring outcomes for clinical correlates of abstinence at 1-year. An active research grant examines the role of psychosocial factors predictive of relapse to alcohol use after transplantation and genetic polymorphisms associated with the development of alcoholic cirrhosis. This grant project includes the Mayo Transplant Centers in Rochester, Jacksonville and Scottsdale. Another research endeavor through Mayo Addiction Services examines the role of patient spiritualily in developing abstinence self-efficacy during treatment and the first year of abstinence. A third research protocol is a joint venture with Mayo hepatology and radiology to assess the utility of MR elastography in determining early liver fibrosis in heavily drinking alcoholic patients. A fourth active protocol explores the culture specific presentations of depression in Arabic-speaking woman from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are eventually diagnosed with major depression.