Psychiatrist believes Memphis VA is meeting challenges of treating veterans

Kenneth Ennis, MD, can’t speak for all of the Veterans Administration hospitals across the country, but he believes veterans are getting a fair shake at the facility in Memphis.

After a wide-ranging career as a psychiatrist that included private practice and a stint as medical director of the psychiatric services at Methodist University Hospital, Ennis joined the VA three years ago. He now is strictly at the Memphis VA Medical Center and sees only veterans.

“Speaking from my experience as a staff psychiatrist, I feel like the Memphis VA does a very good job in treating veterans,” he said. “I’m sure whether it’s in private practice, the VA or a hospital practice there are going to be things that fall through the cracks. But I feel like we’re doing an excellent job here of trying to see that everyone is seen in a timely fashion.

“I think the care received at the VA is on par with healthcare in other organizations or in private practice.”

One of the problems facing the VA, Ennis suggested, is the sheer number of veterans entering the system, with Afghanistan veterans coming in on the heels of Iraq veterans.

“The number of veterans taken care of at the VA has increased substantially, and we have a shortage of psychiatrists to meet that need, and a shortage of mental healthcare workers in general,” he said. “We’re doing a lot of things to increase the number of providers that we have for mental health, but it’s a challenge.”

Although he came to the VA fairly late in his career, Ennis says he has always had an interest in veterans. His father, Wheaton Ennis, is a 94-year-old former Marine who served in the South Pacific during World War II.

As a youngster growing up in Memphis, Ennis enjoyed reading and went to Baylor University as an English major. He also liked science and took science courses. As he got close to earning his degree he began to wonder what he could do with an English degree.

He switched his focus to science and went to medical school at the University of Tennessee in Memphis, where he eventually gravitated toward mental health.

“It wasn’t really a lifelong ambition of mine to be a physician,” he said. “But I sort of fell into it in a way. I always had a curiosity about how the physical and emotional or mental interplayed, so it seemed like as a specialty it combined a lot of interests that I had.”

Aside from a year at the VA in Paragould, Arkansas, Ennis has been based in or around Memphis for his entire career. He has a faculty appointment in the department of psychiatry at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and has worked with the UT Medical Group.

“The VA has been a very interesting experience for me,” he said. “Prior to this I hadn’t treated veterans. I’ve learned a lot about treating people with PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and people reintegrating back into their civilian life after combat experiences.

“The most challenging thing is just helping veterans to reintegrate (as they return) with physical problems, financial difficulties and social and family changes and their having to contend with the constant news of conflict and violence.

“Here, much more than in other places where I’ve practiced, we use a multidisciplinary team approach toward patients, with psychologists, social workers and other support staff.”

Perhaps the most tragic issue Ennis has to deal with is the growing number of veterans who contemplate suicide.

“There’s been a lot of publicity about this, but we’ve had more and more patients with suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and even completed suicides,” he said. “We’re addressing this in many ways. I’ve seen quite a few patients who feel hopeless and suicidal. But we see various diagnoses, everything from the very serious such as schizophrenia to people with maybe social anxiety or what we might consider milder forms of mental illness.”

Ennis estimates that 15 percent of the veterans he sees are women, and the number is growing.

“They’re being exposed to combat situations and explosives and generally just the trauma of war,” he said. “So we do see a lot of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in female veterans as well as males.”

As one might expect, Ennis paid close attention to the recent “American Sniper” trial, in which Eddie Ray Routh was convicted of capital murder in the death of former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. But Ennis steers clear of passing any kind of judgment from afar.

“I’ll sort of leave the outcome to the jury and judges in that particular case,” he said. “I thought it was very sad for everyone involved and highlighted some of the issues with mental disorders and violence.”

Looking forward, Ennis is optimistic about changes that he foresees in healthcare for mental patients, despite issues with trying to achieve parity in funding with more physical illnesses. Something fairly new is “telehealth,” whereby Ennis treats patients via computer at VA facilities outside of Memphis.

“With technology,” he said, “we’re learning more and more about genetics and genomic testing and those sorts of things which will in the future guide our treatment in some more scientific basis than we’ve had in the past.”

While outright cures may be too much to ask, the goal continues to be to manage mental illness and improve the patient’s quality of life.

“You have some veterans who require only a minimal amount of treatment,” he said, “and most of our veterans return to a very productive life, or continue in a very productive life.”

Ennis and his wife, Gwen, a recently retired speech pathologist, have daughters and grandchildren in New York and Texas. So although Ennis likes to travel when he has time off, these days “my traveling basically consists of going to see the grandchildren.”