UC Merced Connect: Researcher looks at psychology of healing

How patients perceive and talk about their illnesses can have an impact on how they recover and heal, according to a growing area of health research being furthered by UC Merced health psychology professor Jitske Tiemensma.

“It should be a team effort to treat a patient. Medical doctors often have no idea about the psychological consequences of disease,” she said. “It’s really important for them to have close ties to health psychologists.”

Tiemensma was selected as a 2014 Hellman Fellow, an award that’s supporting her innovative research into the connections between better chemotherapy tolerance and emotion expression.

The program supports the research of promising assistant professors who show capacity for great distinction.

This summer, Tiemensma held focus groups in English and Spanish with female breast cancer survivors to learn how they’ve expressed their feelings and thoughts related to the disease.

Her goal is to design studies that can explore what kind of impact writing and talking about breast cancer can have for women battling the disease.

At Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, where Tiemensma earned her doctorate in medical science, she worked with patients who had pituitary adenomas – noncancerous tumors in their brains.

She found that even people who were cured still felt like patients and suffered from long-term psychological consequences. For example, quality of life remained impaired after they were cured.

“We’re trying to create an entire picture, not just one that’s focused on physical health,” she said.

UC ag division specialists to work at UC Merced

The University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources has hired two UC Cooperative Extension specialists who will be based at UC Merced.

Karina Diaz-Rios, specialist for nutrition, family and consumer sciences, joined ANR on Sept. 2. Tapan Pathak, specialist for climate adaptation in agriculture, will start Feb. 2, 2015.

Diaz-Rios and Pathak will be located at UC Merced to take advantage of its Central Valley location and proximity to local cooperative extensive offices. They will help connect UC Merced researchers with local cooperative extension academic specialists, area farmers and residents. These two experienced academics will build on research related to climate, food security and nutrition, said Barbara Allen-Diaz, vice president of ANR.

“These positions come with a focus on interacting with the community, conducting applied research, and translating UC research to help the ag economy and local residents,” UC Merced Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Tom Peterson said. “We are pleased that UC Merced can partner with UC ANR on these important issues.”

Diaz-Rios will be housed in UC Merced’s Health Sciences Research Institute and focus on nutrition research and education and food security. She will connect with a larger team of nutrition researchers and educators throughout the UC system addressing issues related to healthy food and human health.

In August, Diaz-Rios completed a post-doctoral research associate appointment at Texas Tech University. Before earning her doctorate, she had a private practice as a dietitian in Mexico.

Pathak, who will be housed in the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced, will help farmers and ranchers adapt to new conditions created by variable and changing climate. He will collaborate with UC colleagues as well as state and federal agencies in statewide efforts to address climate variability. He is currently an extension educator in climate variability at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Serving California agriculture with UC science-based solutions is what ANR does on an everyday basis, Allen-Diaz said.

“California agriculture is a world-recognized marvel, and we’d like to think the university, through ANR’s research and outreach, is a big reason why,” she said. “Adding UC Merced to our existing, thriving partnerships with UC Davis, UC Berkeley and UC Riverside will only strengthen UC efforts in helping California and the world to sustainably feed itself.”

This story was originally published October 21, 2014 at 8:15 PM with the headline "UC Merced Connect: Researcher looks at psychology of healing."