Meet more staff
Current profiles: Ruth Benca and Kathleen Rock.
Ruth M. Benca, MD, PhD
Professor, Director of the UW Center for Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research
Ruth directs Wisconsin Sleep, a center that she helped create in the impressive lower level of the brand new building that houses the HealthEmotions Research Institute. The sleep center began seeing patients in October 2007. As director, she is a mentor to physicians, residents, fellows, psychologists, nurses, and support staff. She has worked in the Department for 15 years.
Ruth considers herself primarily a clinician. She’s also the deputy editor of Sleep, and collaborates with other sleep centers across the country. She is passionate about growing the field and actively recruits psychiatrists to adopt sleep as a specialty and to apply for faculty positions and fellowships. Her own research focus has shifted from using animal models to delving into human, translational research where discoveries made in the lab are systematically brought into patient care.
“I think people need to do new things to keep their careers interesting,” said Ruth. “I was able to do that by staying at the University while changing responsibilities.” She credits the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Public Health and UW Medical Foundation for supporting the creation of the Center.
“The most fun part is also the most challenging part,” she said. “There is so much to do; there is not enough time in the day.” She wishes, alternately, that she had time for more sleep herself, or that people didn’t need as much sleep as they do.
More of Ruth’s goals are to mentor additional new faculty in the field of sleep; build the academic side of the sleep center; and recruiting through the six departments that provide faculty to the center – Family Medicine, Medicine, Neurology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Otolaryngology.
Kathleen M. Rock
Medical Program Assistant Sr.
Kathy is the friendly face and helping hand that greets every potential and eventual resident for the general Psychiatry residency training program. She has spent 25 years in the Department and just completed her seventh season of residency recruitment. It is a “big job,” she says, but recruitment is only the first step of a much larger process. Kathy supports residents as they learn to navigate the organizational, professional, and sometimes personal challenges of moving from trainee to professional. Even after they graduate, alumni of the residency look to Kathy as a resource and friend.
Kathy takes pride in promoting UW Psychiatry’s residency program. “I am a representative of the Department, so I always keep that positive image in mind. It’s not just about me,” she says. She enjoys seeing the residents grow as people during the residency.
Among Kathy’s short-term goals are to keep up with e-mail and paperwork.
For the long term, she plans to keep “nurturing, directing and guiding residents as they develop into the next generation of psychiatrists.”