Dr. Riddle completed her residency and geriatric psychiatry fellowship training at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. She received her medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center and completed the Executive Healthcare Leadership Program at the University of Kentucky.
In addition to serving as the Associate Director of MAP, she continues to see patients clinically with a focus on late-life mood disorders and neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia.
Here, she shares the touching key moments that have shaped her career thus far and the driving forces behind the future she hopes to see unfold at MAP and in the field of Alzheimer’s.
I’ve known I wanted to work with the elderly since I was young. I come from a small town in Kentucky and a close-knit family where we spent a lot of time with both sets of grandparents. I also volunteered at the local nursing home when I was in high school.
I’ve always loved spending time with older people, but there was one experience in particular that led me to want be a geriatric psychiatrist. When I was in medical school, one of my first clinical rotations was in psychiatry at a veterans’ hospital.
I have a very poignant memory of a gentleman there whom I worked with every day. He had metastatic prostate cancer to his brain which caused him to become very impaired and psychotic. He received a course of electroconvulsive therapy and it worked to bring his brain function and behavior back to normal. He got to go home with his wife on their anniversary. They were ballroom dancers, and they danced for us on his last day there to say thank you.
To see that kind of impact on someone and their family was powerful, and I thought, “I want to help people like that.” And from there on that interest just grew.
Well, I’m only about a decade in, but there have been distinct periods of my growth as a physician that I’ve found very rewarding.
One of the things I’m most proud of is establishing the first fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Initially when I applied for my residency, I only applied to places that had an existing Geriatric Psychiatry fellowship, because I knew that is what I wanted to do.
However, Vanderbilt was located close to my hometown, I fell in love with the program, and I really wanted to work in my own community. They allowed me to help create the fellowship, working alongside the geriatric attending physicians there. I became Vanderbilt’s first Geriatric Psychiatry fellow, and ultimately became the program director, which allowed me to shape the training for future residents and fellows. It was really rewarding to have a passion for something and be able to pass it on to others in that way.
More recently, I worked at a state psychiatric hospital in Kentucky. I was the attending physician for a 28-bed geriatric medical unit where approximately half the patients had various types of late-stage dementia. Many of these people had no resources and nowhere else to go and we cared for some of them until they passed away. This was also during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To be able to care for these people during that time of fear and vulnerability, especially people that did not have all their faculties and could not even visit with family due to the pandemic – that was very powerful and something I will always carry with me. It made me a better physician and a better person.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not at work? When I’m not here, I’m with my two children, Jack who is 7 and Clara who is 4. They are the joy of my life. They are so much fun and have had a great transition since we moved from Kentucky in August.
My husband and I really enjoy camping as a family, so we’ve spent the past few months exploring the northeast, camping and hiking and taking advantage of all that’s available here. I also enjoy exercising on the Peloton, and since COVID, I’ve discovered painting. I find it is a nice way to escape and a challenge to do something new.
It’s an incredible time in our field. The amount of energy, excitement and hope with these new disease-modifying treatments that are coming online is truly transformative. Most of my clinical practice up to this point has been with patients as they progress through the later stages of the disease and until they die, and most of the care during that time is primarily symptom management. It is more focused on maintaining quality of life and helping individuals and families meet their goals for care.
Those are very different conversations than I’m having now here at the Memory and Aging Program. Here, I’m focused on early diagnosis and early intervention. We have the opportunity to make a change early on to try and slow the progression of disease, help maintain living a full life, making memories with their families.
It is simply amazing, and to be a part of that during this incredible time in the field, you cannot help but have excitement for what is to come. It is wonderful to work in a program that is as well established as this one. It is an opportunity to grow and learn from colleagues and see how my own expertise fits into the overall picture, and how I can contribute to this field and its work.
It is also a place that feels like a family, which I enjoy. It has been so rewarding to start meeting the families who are participating in research, some of whom have been involved for years.
I am really looking forward to getting acquainted with more of the families who are already part of this experience. And if anyone out there is thinking about getting involved but is unsure, I would love to talk with them. The access to new ideas and potential treatments available is incredible. I could not ask to be part of a better organization or community.
If you're 40+ with normal memory or mild memory loss, you can help in the fight against Alzheimer's. Here's how: butler.org/ALZregistry