Dr. Simkin's interest is in Precision Medicine/Functional Medicine using the NIMH Research Domain Criteria to

explore such things as, epigenetics, lifestyle issues, nutritional deficiencies, food insecurity, toxins,

QEEG and early effects of neglect and abuse on the developing brain, and ways to explore antecedents,

triggers, and moderators that may cause or perpetuate the progression of all chronic diseases, especially in

the underserved. This requires addressing shortcomings of health equity and exploring new ways to deliver

care using such things as, AI.

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Dr. Simkin, M.D. is a board certified Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychiatrist who practices Functional or Integrative Psychiatry and Sport Psychiatry. Dr. Simkin is a Distinguished Fellow with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP). She is certified in Functional Medicine by the Institute of Functional Medicine.  

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Dr. Simkin trained at Harvard’s McLean and Mass General Hospitals in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Following her residency she served as chair/co-chair of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s (AACAP) Committee on Substance Abuse for 10 years.  In that capacity, she set up the liaison between AACAP and NIDA with Dr. Alan Leschner, to establish grant writing workshops for child and adolescent psychiatrists at AACAP.  While co-chair she set up a curriculum guideline for substance abuse in 2002 and re-vised it in 2005. She represented AACAP as Co-Chair for the ASAM Revision of Patient Placement Criteria for Treatment of Adolescent Substance-Related Disorders and represented AACAP at the Physician Leadership on National Drug Policy for Adolescent Substance Abuse at NIDA.  She also served as the Liaison to the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Substance Abuse on behalf of AACAP for ten years.

 

For the last ten years she has served as co-chair for AACAP's Committee on Complementary and Integrative Medicine. She also set up a liaison between the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine or NCCAM (soon to be re-named the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine or NCCIM) at NIH and AACAP to increase interest in research.

 

Dr. Simkin has served as Assistant Professor while at Dartmouth Medical School, Clinical Assistant Professor while teaching residents at LSU School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, Adjunct Associate Professor while at the University of South Alabama (USA) and is presently Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Emory Medical School. While at USA she served as residency director and became a member of the Society of Professor’s in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She presently teaches Complementary and Integrative Medicine or Functional Medicine  at the University of Emory Medical School. She has won many teaching awards while at LSU, USA, and Emory and has served as a residency director.

 

She has authored or co-authored over 40 chapters and articles. She also served as Co-Editor of the Adolescent Section in the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s Textbook on Addiction Medicine and served as Co-Editor for the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America's two volume textbook on Alternative and Complementary Therapies for Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Disorders. Her co-editor for the latter was her former mentor at Harvard, Charles Popper, M.D. She has recently published 2 articles on the gut-brain-axis. One entitled "Microbiome and Mental Health, Specifically as It Relates to Adolescents" and one she wrote with her distinguished Co-Chair, Gene Arnold, entitled "The Roles of Inflammation, Oxidative Stress and the Gut-Brain Axis in Treatment Refractory Depression in Youth: Complementary and Integrative Medicine Interventions". She and Dr. Arnold published an updated textbook on CIM in child and adolescent psychiatric disorders in the Clinics of North America which was published in April, 2023. Another text on CIM interventions will follow in 2025.

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Prior to medical School, Dr. Simkin was a professional ballet dancer which led to her interest in Sport's Psychiatry. She trained with a PhD psychologist at Harvard who trained many of the Olympic athletes. She also specializes in executive Coaching.

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She has spoken internationally on topics such as, psychoneuroimmunology, PTSD, refractory depression, autism, ADHD, childhood trauma, TBI and mood disorders.

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See Presentations, Publications and Awards