Alum wins Outstanding Young Alumn
By TYLER FRANCISCHINE
From the private practice she founded in Atlanta to her work with
the Department of Juvenile Justice, Sarah Vinson, MD ’07, strives to
identify the socioeconomic and political factors that negatively affect
the mental health of underserved minority populations, with the
goal of removing the stigma around receiving treatment.
V inson’s work is having an enormous impact in and
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beyond her community as well as within the field
of psychiatry. The University of Florida recently
recognized her contribution, naming Vinson a 2018
Outstanding Young Alumnus and honoring her during an
April 14 ceremony held in Gainesville.
As the founder of the Atlanta-based practice Lorio Psych
Group, Vinson works as a triple board-certified child and
adolescent, adult, and forensic psychiatrist. She also works
as a regional youth detention center psychiatrist, caring for
incarcerated youth.
“Our biggest challenge is understanding all the things
outside of medicine that make people sick,” Vinson said. “I
deal with failures of the housing, education and criminal
justice systems and how those manifest in distress, especially
in children.”
Vinson said people didn’t speak about mental health in
the small northwest Florida town where she was raised. After
moving to Gainesville to attend UF, she began learning the
language surrounding psychiatry and made connections
within her own history.
“When (former UF psychiatry chair) Mark Gold gave a
lecture on the neurobiology of addiction, it helped me
understand why people I knew and loved acted differently
under different circumstances,” she said. “I realized it didn’t
always have to end up the same way for those people.”
Vinson credits Gold, MD '75, along with Donna Parker, MD
’90, and Richard Christensen, MD, for not only teaching her
about medicine, but teaching her to believe in herself.
“I really struggled my first semester of medical school. I
was wondering, 'Am I cut out to be a physician?’ There were
faculty here who believed in me when I didn’t believe in
myself,” she said. “To go from someone questioning whether
they belong here to receiving the Outstanding Young
Alumnus Award reinforces the profound sense of gratitude I
have for the faculty here.”
Vinson visited her alma mater in early April for the second
annual Celebration of Diversity Week, which comprises
events that highlight diversity, inclusion and equity in
health care. While moderating a dean’s grand rounds panel
discussion, Vinson explained to students, faculty and staff
the impact the UF College of Medicine has had on her career
ever since her teen years when she attended the UF Health
Care Summer Institute, a program that immerses minority
high school students in the world of health professions.
“I had never seen a black doctor until I met Dr. Parker,” she
said. “The HCSI was incredibly impactful. It all started here at
the UF College of Medicine for me in many ways.”
Although Vinson’s activities — including the online
resource OurselvesBlack.com and the book “Pediatric
Mental Health for Primary Care Providers,” published this
year — keep her schedule packed, she finds each day to be
rewarding and renewing.
“To have this platform, given my background, is
not something I take for granted,” she said. “I am in a
position of privilege, and I’m using that to educate others.
That’s a reward.”
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PHOTO BY JESSE S. JONES
If you look to your left and you look to your right, any one of
those people could be incubating and spreading the flu.” “It’s a tricky virus.
— Nicole Iovine, MD, PhD, an associate professor of
medicine in the division of infectious diseases and
global medicine, discussing the flu epidemic with
The Independent Florida Alligator, Jan. 23.
/OurselvesBlack.com