South Nassau Psychologists Receive Prestigious International Honor

The International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) announced that Garden City resident Thomas Demaria, PhD, Assistant Vice President of Behavioral Health Services, and Mina Barrett, PhD, Director of Training and Research, at South Nassau Communities Hospital are co-recipients of its 2005 Sarah Haley Memorial Award for Clinical Excellence.

The award was presented to Drs. Demaria and Barrett during the 21st Annual Meeting of the ISTSS to be held in Toronto, Canada, November 5. The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) is the world's premier trauma organization dedicated to trauma treatment, education, research and prevention. Members of ISTSS include psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, counselors, researchers, administrators, advocates, journalists, clergy and others with an interest in the study and treatment of traumatic stress. ISTSS provides a forum for sharing research, clinical strategies, public policy concerns and theoretical formulations about trauma in the United States and around the world.

"That South Nassau is at the forefront of developing and introducing programs and services devoted to serving individuals in the aftermath of traumatic events is largely due to the vision and leadership of Dr. Demaria and the expertise of disaster specialists such as Dr. Barrett," said Akram Boutros, MD, Executive Vice President of Administration and Chief Medical Officer. "This is a symbol of their commitment to excellence and the development of programs and services that embrace the mission of the Hospital."

The Sarah Haley Memorial Award for Clinical Excellence is given to a clinician or group of clinicians in direct service to traumatized individuals. This written and/or verbal communication to the field must exemplify the work of Sarah Haley. A social worker at the Boston Veterans Administration Hospital, Sarah Haley is known for her clinical work with soldiers returning from the Vietnam War who presented severe psychiatric symptoms, but were routinely diagnosed as character disordered or paranoid schizophrenics.

Unlike most of her colleagues, Ms. Haley did not entirely concur, recognizing that many of her patients who had seen combat in Vietnam were being misdiagnosed because mental health professionals had failed to recognize the symptoms related to war.

The daughter of a World War II Veteran, Haley heard stories of trauma and wartime atrocities from the time she was a little girl and had personally experienced the long-term impact of war on her father's behavior and his treatment of her. When she met a Vietnam veteran who claimed to have been involved in the massacre of a village called My Lai, she did not assume that he was delusional -- she believed him, and diagnosed his condition as behavioral trauma. The veteran was successfully treated for what is now defined as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and as result thousands of other soldiers, who would have been diagnosed and treated incorrectly, were successfully rehabilitated and treated.

Dr. Demaria has worked at South Nassau since 1987. Dr. Demaria founded both the World Trade Center Family Center and Home Ground Program. The WTC Family Center (www.wtcfamilycenter.org ) has counseled over 1,500 bereaved family members since 9/11. Home Ground (www.homeground.org) has provided special counseling programs for several thousand 9/11 rescue and recovery workers and their families. Dr. Demaria was awarded the New York State Liberty Award in 2002 for community services after the World Trade Center. Past awards have included citations from the Holocaust Memorial and Educational Center and Five Towns Y Holocaust Survivor Program, Humanitarian Award from the Center for Christian and Jewish Studies, Molloy College for Excellence in Teaching, Nassau County American Red Cross Service Award, and the General Douglas MacArthur Youth Services Award. Dr. Demaria has provided counseling in over 250 local and regional disasters for both South Nassau Communities Hospital and the Nassau County Department of Mental Health. Dr. Demaria is also a responder for the Mental Health Disaster Teams of the Nassau County and Greater New York Chapters of the American Red Cross. Dr. Demaria was recently asked by the federal government to lead a team to Mississippi to assist in the disaster recovery following Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Barrett is a founder of the Psychology Department at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury and currently Professor of Psychology and licensed psychologist in New York and California. She was research advisor for The Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition, and served as Function Lead of Disaster Mental Health in the American Red Cross of Nassau County (1996-2001). She has served on county and federal cancer and environmental advisory boards including the National Cancer Institute's Advisory Board for Consumer Access to Clinical Trails Data, the Brookhaven National Laboratory Community Advisory Committee and the Suffolk County Rhabdomyosarcoma Task Force, given testimony to national/local agencies on childhood cancer risk assessment, patient's right to die and environmental risk factors and breast cancer. Additionally, she was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Breast Cancer Coalition for 1 in 9 and working groups for the U.S. Department of Health and the National Action Plan on Breast Cancer.

South Nassau Communities Hospital is one of the region's largest hospitals, with 435 beds, more than 820 physicians and 2,200 employees. Located in Oceanside, NY, the Hospital is an acute-care, not-for-profit teaching hospital that provides state-of-the-art care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, mental health and emergency services. In addition to its extensive outpatient specialty centers, South Nassau boasts Long Island's first gamma knife and New York State's first acute angioplasty program.