William Ventres, MD, MA
Bill Ventres is a seasoned family physician and medical anthropologist and is the Ben Saltzman, MD, Distinguished Chair in Rural Family Medicine in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Clinically, he has more than 30 years’ experience as a community-based family doctor working in both in ambulatory and hospital settings. Dr. Ventres’ work has focused on the care of underserved and minority populations in safety-net clinics and corrections health settings. Outside of clinical practice, he has been a leader in developing family medicine internationally, investigating communication between physicians and patients, and using qualitative methods to explore practice-oriented research questions. Dr. Ventres has written extensively on topics related to social determinants of health, ethics in generalist practice, and social accountability in medical education. He has been awarded two Fulbright Senior Scholarships to teach in medicine and public health, one in Venezuela and the other in El Salvador, and has been a visiting professor at the Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Erick Messias, MD, PhDDr. Messias was born and raised in Brazil, where he completed medical school and practiced family medicine in rural areas before moving to Baltimore for residency training. He then completed a psychiatry residency at the University of Maryland, in 2001, and preventive medicine training at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in 2003. While at Hopkins he also received a master’s in public health and a PhD in Psychiatric Epidemiology. Since graduation he has held academic positions at his alma mater in Brazil, and later in Georgia and Arkansas where he was medical director of the Walker Family Clinic and responsible for the House Staff Mental Health Service at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock. Dr. Messias served as VP and Medical Director for Beacon Health Options, overseeing the mental health care received by Arkansas Medicaid recipients. Dr. Messias has over 50 publications in scientific journals, has published several book chapters, and edited a volume on schizophrenia for psychiatrists and a textbook on Positive Psychiatry, Psychology and Psychotherapy, he’s the recipient of many research and teaching awards. Dr. Messias also served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Affair for the UAMS College of Medicine and Program Director for the Baptist-UAMS psychiatry residency program, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Dr. Messias is currently the Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the St. Louis University School of Medicine.

References and Resources

1. Ventres W, Messias E. From ACEs to ASHEs: adverse shared historical experiences and their impact on health outcomes. South Med J. 2021 Nov;114(11):719-721.
2. World Health Organization. Social determinants of health. https://www.who.int/teams/social-determinants-of-health. Accessed April 4, 2021.
3. Campbell TL. Screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACES) in primary care: a cautionary note. JAMA 2020;323:2379–2380.
4. Pinderhughes H, Davis R, Williams M. Adverse community experiences and resilience: a framework for addressing and preventing community trauma. https://www.preventioninstitute.org/publications/adverse-communityexperiences-and-resilience-framework-addressing-and-preventing. Published February 2016. Accessed April 4, 2021.
5. Mohatt NV, Thompson AB, Thai ND, et al. Historical trauma as public narrative: a conceptual review of how history impacts present-day health. Soc Sci Med 2014;106:128–136.