Amy Drayton, Ph.D., will become the director of the Munroe-Meyer Institute (MMI) Department of Pediatric Feeding in September.
Dr. Drayton, who earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Eastern Michigan University, is no stranger to MMI. From 2009-10, she was a post-doctoral intern and took part in MMI’s Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program.
She currently directs the Interdisciplinary Pediatric Feeding Program at the University of Michigan Medical Center.
Dr. Drayton said she was excited to be rejoining MMI.
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Rachel Knight, Ph.D. |
“This is one of the best programs in the world already, so it’s an honor to lead it,” she said. “I’m excited to build from the strengths that already exist and bring new programs and treatment techniques we’ve started here at the University of Michigan.”
Dr. Drayton said she loved her time at MMI as a LEND participant.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today without my internship experience at MMI,” she said, adding that it opened the doors for her at the University of Michigan. “It is well known in the field of psychology and in the world of ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) that MMI is a leader in the treatment of feeding disorders.”
Strengthening that leadership position will be one of Dr. Drayton’s top goals, and her plan is to continue with the already well-regarded, empirically supported assessment and treatment techniques while importing additional expertise from the other disciplines available to her at MMI and UNMC.
“Here at Michigan, we currently work with pediatric gastroenterologists, speech-language pathologists and registered dietitians to better take in to account the medical and oral-motor factors that contribute to a specific feeding disorder,” she said. “With a registered dietitian taking individual needs into account, we can tailor the treatments to each child.”
Michigan faculty member Rachel Knight, Ph.D., another LEND alum, will be coming to MMI with Dr. Drayton as an assistant professor.
“It’s really exciting to have an offer to come back to MMI,” Dr. Knight said. “It’s one of the top feeding programs in the world.”
“We are extremely excited at the opportunity to work with faculty across divisions and departments to integrate feeding care,” Dr. Drayton said. “We want to expand the services provided in pediatric feeding to more ages and types of feeding disorders. You can only do that by working with other groups — the NICU, gastroenterologists, speech-language pathologists, general pediatricians and psychologists — in integrated care. We want to work with collaborators to treat feeding disorders before they get severe. Pediatric feeding disorders touch kids across all the medical and non-medical specialties, and we really want them to be treated as a systemic issue.”
MMI Director Karoly Mirnics, M.D., Ph.D., called both Drs. Drayton and Knight “amazing, caring clinicians and wonderful individuals who will be a great fit with MMI’s culture.”
Drs. Drayton and Knight will begin their roles at MMI on Sept. 1.