This event was made possible by a grant by Congressman Jamie Raskin and administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

About the speakers

Sarah Frazell, LCSW-C is a licensed clinical social worker in Maryland.  She is the Director of Behavioral Health at Primary Care Coalition in Montgomery County, and she oversees a Collaborative Care behavioral health program that provides behavioral health services for patients at safety-net primary care clinics in Montgomery County, utilizing the collaborative care model.  She is a registered clinical supervisor.  She has bachelors’ degrees in Spanish and Social Work from Wartburg College in Waverly Iowa, and a Masters’ degree from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Campus.  Sarah’s areas of interest and expertise include Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging; Health Equity; and Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma.  Sarah has given presentations for MedChi, The National Association of Social Workers-Maryland chapter, The MidAtlantic Path Forward, SAMSHA (Value Based Care Conference), and the American Public Health Association.

Ashley Maher, PhD, is the lead psychologist of Trauma Disorders Services at Sheppard Pratt. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. During her time at Rosalind Franklin University, she developed and coordinated the behavioral health program for the university’s interdisciplinary community care clinic serving an uninsured/under-insured and predominantly Latino and Spanish-speaking population. Dr. Maher completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, where she focused on posttraumatic stress disorder, military sexual trauma, and combat-related distress.

Elizabeth Ryznar, MD, MSC is the Director of Medical Education at Sheppard Pratt, as well as a board-certified psychiatrist. After earning her bachelor’s degree at Harvard College, she obtained her master’s degree from the University of Oxford and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ryznar completed residency at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University and a postdoctoral research fellowship in medical education at Johns Hopkins. She was then appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins and served as an attending physician there, before moving to Sheppard Pratt. Her clinical focus is consultation-liaison psychiatry. Her research interests include consultation-liaison psychiatry, childhood trauma, psychiatric diagnosis, decision-making capacity, medical education, and curriculum development. Dr. Ryznar is co-editor of “Landmark Papers in Psychiatry,” published by Oxford University Press in 2020, and has several peer-reviewed articles. She has been recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a Leadership Fellow (2017-2019), by the American College of Psychiatrists as a Laughlin Fellow (2018) and returning fellow (2019), and by the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry for best review article in Psychosomatics (2021). She is also the recipient of clinical teaching awards at Northwestern and Johns Hopkins.

Rachel Smolowitz, PhD is a clinical-community psychologist serving as the program manager of Sheppard Pratt Collaborative Care at GBMC. Dr. Smolowitz completed her doctoral program at the University of South Carolina and wrote her dissertation on empowerment of adults with serious mental illness. She then worked as a clinical psychologist with adults who have co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders. Dr. Smolowitz is focused in her work on developing capacity to improve the lives of people with serious mental illness.

Disclosure Statements

Sheppard Pratt holds the standard that its continuing medical education programs should be free of commercial bias and conflict of interest. In accord with Sheppard Pratt's Disclosure Policy, as well as standards of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) and the American Medical Association (AMA), all planners, reviewers, speakers and persons in control of content have been asked to disclose any relationship he /she has with any entity producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients, during the past 24 months. All planners, reviewers and speakers have also been asked to disclose any payments accepted for this lecture from any entity besides Sheppard Pratt, and if there will be discussion of any products, services or off-label uses of product(s) during this presentation.

Sarah Frazell, LCSW-C , Ashley Maher, PhD, Elizabeth Ryznar, MD, MSC, & Rachel Smolowitz, PhD, reports that they have no relationships with any entity producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients, during the past 24 months. They will not discuss any products, services, or off-label uses in this presentation.

Event Planners/Reviewers Disclosures: The following event planners and/or reviewers are reported as having no financial interest, arrangement or affiliation with any entity producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients, during the past 24 months: Larry Epp, EdD, Todd Peters, MD, Deepak Prabhakar, MD, Elizabeth Ryznar, MD, MSc, Louis Marino, MD, Ehsan Syed, MD, Devi Bhuyan, PhD, Faith Dickerson, PhD, Carrie Etheridge, LCSW-C, Tom Flis, LCPC, Lisa Illum, MLIS, MEd, and Jennifer Tornabene.