Notables is a monthly e-newsletter to share stories about discoveries and best practices that are opening doors and transforming lives for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.
Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in our state, nation, and world face disparities in health care compared with the general population. Dr. Tom Cheetham, a Family Medicine physician, dedicated his career to addressing this injustice.
Cheetham passed away on August 20. He had served as Deputy Commissioner of Health Services for the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (DIDD) since 2011.
In June 2017, Cheetham received the inaugural Surgeon General’s Spirit Award for Outstanding Leadership and Service of the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry.
In 2015, TennCare and the VKC UCEDD collaborated on the development of video training modules for health professionals, “Appropriate Use of Psychotropic Medications for People with IDD: Healing Individuals Get the Best Behavioral Health Care.” A related training was developed for individuals with IDD, their families, and other caregivers. Cheetham was instrumental in planning content, and also appeared in the videos.
Cheetham was a Board-Certified family physician with over 30 years’ experience serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He began in this field in the early 1970s, prior to medical school, when he and his wife were live-in house parents supporting ten adults with intellectual disabilities. His clinical experience included providing primary medical care in three developmental centers, being the sole physician for a tertiary 24-bed dual diagnosis (intellectual disability and a psychiatric diagnosis or significant behavioral issues) unit in a state psychiatric hospital, and as a community-based family physician for 15 years, all in Ontario, Canada.
After being granted a rare O visa by the U.S. Department of Citizenship and Immigration, Cheetham became the medical director at Orange Grove Center, in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2009. His clinical experience also included primary care and dual diagnosis consulting for a large community agency serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities across the age spectrum, and with a multidisciplinary community-based dual diagnosis team.
Cheetham’s publications included book chapters on physical health, guidelines on primary care of adults, and the use of psychotropic medications in management of problem behaviors in adults with intellectual disabilities.
Cheetham has held academic appointments in the Department of Family Medicine and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Western Ontario, and in the Department of Family Medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Most recently, he was an adjoint assistant professor of Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College.
In 2007, Cheetham was selected Physician of the Year by the Developmental Disabilities Nurses Association, and he was a Fellow in the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (VKC) works with and for people with disabilities and their family members, service providers and advocates, researchers and policy makers. It is among only a few centers nationwide to include a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, a Eunice Kennedy Shriver Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, a Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities Training Program, and a Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorder.
This is a monthly email of Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Notables published by the Communications staff of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. Between issues of Notables, you can stay up to date on the latest Vanderbilt Kennedy Center news, information, and resources via the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center’s Facebook page.