Dr. Brian Richards
“One thing that has kept me in long-term care is just how challenging and fast moving it can be at times...”
December, 2015
Brian Richards, PsyD, completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins and realized that the research track wasn’t for him. He found it much more compelling and meaningful to work directly with patients in a clinical capacity. Dr. Richards says the first job that was offered to him out of his fellowship when he was still a “glorified student” was work in long-term care. “So I kind of began my career working with this population, many of whom were chronically mentally ill, and I really found it very challenging, and also meaningful to work with such an underserved population,” says Dr. Richards. “Often in facilities where there were limited resources, limited staffing and related challenges, and how to really bring everyone together, communicate with one another, effectively understand as best we could this unique person psychology, and how to be helpful to them at often a very difficult point in their lives.”
Dr. Richards is working with AMDA on an educational program providing training for the interdisciplinary team on how to care for younger adults (ages 31-64) in long-term care. AMDA was awarded a $1.6 million grant to develop the training and curriculum program from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), using civil money penalty (CMP) funds. AMDA is currently working with health care providers in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Click here to read more about this project. Hear more from Dr. Richards below.