The Future of Healthcare: “Using VR to treat PTSD” with founder Deborah C. Beidel, Ph.D., ABPP

As a part of my series about “The Future of Healthcare” I had the pleasure of interviewing Deborah C. Beidel, Ph.D., ABPP. Deborah C. Beidel, Ph.D., ABPP, is the founder and director of UCF RESTORES® at the University of Central Florida (UCF). Beidel also serves as the UCF Psychology and Medical Education trustee chair and Pegasus professor.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

On Oct. 2, 2006, Charles Carl Roberts entered a one-room schoolhouse in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He told the boys to get out before lining up 10 young girls, shooting each of them in the head at point-blank range and, ultimately, killing himself.

On that day, I was serving as the chief psychologist at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Half of the girls ended up in our emergency room and I spent the following months working through the aftermath. I cried with the families, dealt with the media and spent a lot of time with the first responders and medical personnel that responded to and treated the victims, all of whom were affected by this horrific, tragic event.