CINDY SANDERS

Dr. Rhea with her dog Winston

There’s no place like home for Dr. Karen Rhea.

Although she grew up just a few miles down the road, Rhea has traveled many paths she never imagined during her rural West Tennessee upbringing on her way to becoming Centerstone’s vice president for Medical Services.

Speaking with her, it’s clear she cherishes the foundation of growing up on a farm. It’s just, she ruefully admits, that she had no idea what she was getting herself into when she calmly declared at age eight that she had decided to become a doctor. At that time, no one from her high school had ever gone to medical school … and certainly no girl.

Still, she said, teachers, family and local healthcare providers were supportive of her dream. The town physician hired the undergraduate biology major to work in his office during Rhea’s summer break from King College in East Tennessee.

“I delivered my first baby at 17,” she said, and then quickly added that in today’s regulatory climate that certainly wouldn’t be allowed. At the time, however, it was enough to convince her she wanted to work with children.

After graduate school at the University of Tennessee and medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rhea came to Vanderbilt for her internship and residency in pediatrics.

“Vanderbilt looked like a wonderful place to train … I didn’t realize then how fortunate I was to be there,” she said of returning to Tennessee to be near family and friends.

She and a partner set up the first pediatric practice in Williamson County — the Franklin Children’s Clinic. Although Rhea loved working with children, she recognized that she had already achieved her major childhood goal of starting her own practice and that there must be more to accomplish.

“I decided the area of greatest need in pediatric and adolescent health was mental health. There were very limited resources at that time,” she said.

With that realization, Rhea returned to Vanderbilt to train in child, adolescent and general psychiatry. She accepted a faculty appointment with the Department of Psychiatry and spent the next six years teaching and engaging in clinical work with children and adolescents.

“I left to open an outpatient psychiatry practice in Franklin — initially with Columbia/HCA and later with Adventist HealthCare network,” she continued. “In this time period, I saw patients from my pediatric practice, some of their children and some of their parents.”

“Working in Franklin is always an incredible work experience. It’s a wonderful, gracious community,” Rhea said. “Those were really happy times for me.”

Even though she loved working close to home — Rhea has lived in the same historic house on Main Street in Franklin for more than 30 years — she simply couldn’t pass up an exciting new challenge.

“I was approached by Centerstone to take the job of vice president for Medical Services. After several months of interviewing and visiting and negotiating, I began work here in April 2002,” Rhea recalled. “I was fascinated by the opportunity to accomplish something different, and the really neat thing was that this job would utilize all the clinical skills that I had developed over my entire career and the professional relationships that I had established … it was a chance to do something unique.”

It also allowed her to bring her many medical passions — caring for body, mind and spirit — together as she advocated for patients’ total health and well-being.

“I’m passionate about medicine in general. I think it’s fascinating. I haven’t seen a specialty I didn’t think was interesting,” Rhea continued with a laugh.

In clinical practice, Rhea said she pictured herself as the team quarterback who could help patients get into the right hands by steering patients toward medical colleagues to meet physical needs and working directly with them on their psychiatric needs. Patients were the real winners, scoring an improved outlook and sense of well-being as their mental and physical health improved.

“Now, I’m passionate about creating a system that allows a larger number of patients to get state-of-the-art mental health treatment that works, and I’m passionate about integrating physical healthcare and mental healthcare.”

She continued, “We know, for instance, there is a 25-year decrease in life expectancy for the seriously mentally ill, and most of that relates to cardiovascular disease and metabolic disease. We need to do a better job of working together with the internists and the family practice physicians and the pediatricians to be sure that we get better health outcomes in general.”

Her work at Centerstone allows her to turn her passions into reality. Centerstone saw more than 50,000 individuals last year and offers more than 60 distinct programs ranging from psychiatric services to psychotherapy to substance abuse treatment to school-based counseling and prevention programs. The broad scope provides Rhea with a forum to advocate for vulnerable populations on a local, state and national level.

During a typical day, Rhea works with Centerstone’s medical staff on clinical matters and represents those psychiatric and medical issues to the rest of the leadership team. As the largest provider of behavioral health services in Tennessee and the ninth largest in the nation, Centerstone has also taken on a leadership role in education, policymaking and research — arenas in which Rhea is heavily involved. She works closely with the Bureau of TennCare, the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare and other state and national organizations.

Rhea has also helped forge a close working relationship with Vanderbilt to facilitate research for finding the most effective treatments and the appropriate technology to bring those treatments into the practice setting.

Always one to look to the next goal and address the next need, Rhea said she sees herself in the next five years continuing in the physician executive role.

“I will involve myself more in issues of national concern in behavioral healthcare, particularly for the public sector,” she said.

As passionate as she is about work, Rhea brings equal enthusiasm to her rich personal life filled with friends and family.

“I have three wonderful sons,” she said, “who were born in three separate decades.”

Patrick, her oldest, is in his 30s and was a political science major. Middle son Isaac is a medical student; and her youngest, Dylan, is a 16-year-old Battle Ground Academy junior and avid tennis player. He, too, hopes to be a physician one day.

Of all the incredible guys in her life, the one that receives the most pampering, she said with a laugh, is Winston, her beloved Springer Spaniel.

“Other things that I care about are travel … I just got back from Ireland and Wales,” she said, adding she also enjoys staying physically fit to keep up with her sons.

“I like beautiful things including classical music by Vivaldi and the color blue,” Rhea revealed. “And I love being a Southerner.”

Nurturing the body, mind and spirit — both on the job and off — gives Rhea a sense of well-being and the drive to help others achieve fulfillment and balance.




December 2007