Faculty Featured

The 1999 Tennessee Suicide Prevention Conference featured a nationally acclaimed faculty, including U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D. PH.D, who presented his national suicide prevention strategies.

The Commissioners of the State Departments of Health (Dr. Fredia Wadley) and Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities (Elisabeth Rukeyser) were in attendance. TDMHDD Medical Director Dr. Judy Regan served as a moderator of the conference. Vicki Yates of Channel 5 was moderator for the luncheon.

Entertainer CeCe Winans spoke and performed at the Survivors of Suicide Dutch Treat Dinner. Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Author of A Unique Mind and Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, made an excellent presentation on “Depression and Suicide."

State and local authorities in the field of teen suicide, suicide within the aging population, depression and suicide, substance abuse and suicide, suicide prevention in the religious community, suicide and psychological trauma and suicide among physicians and health-care workers presented concurrent workshops. Jerry and Elsie Weyrauch made presentations and held a SPAN-networking meeting. Quilts were displayed in memory or those who had committed suicide. Research findings on the problem of suicide in the United States and Tennessee and the neurobiology of suicide were presented.