Teresa Cutts

Dr. Teresa Cutts completed her post-doctoral fellowship in Health Psychology from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) College of Medicine in 1987. From 1988-1994, she worked as a staff psychologist at Baptist Memorial Hospital and held an appointment at UTHSC in Psychiatry. From 1993-2001, she was a private practitioner at the Memphis Center for Women and Families, with a focus on health psychology (prevention and management of physical illness and pain, eating disorders and trauma treatment) and conducted critical incident stress debriefings in the community. Since 1987, she has conducted clinical team research in the area of quality of life and catastrophic gastrointestinal disorders. She currently serves as a consultant to the NIH Gastroparesis multi-site consortium.

From 2001 to 2005, she served as director of program development at the Church Health Center, a comprehensive, faith-based health program for the underserved. She holds a joint clinical appointment as asst. professor (non-tenure track) in both Preventive Medicine and Psychiatry at UT and has co-authored/published two book chapters and 14 articles. Most recently, with Rev. Dr. Gary Gunderson, she co-authored an article in the World Health Organization publication on Decent Care (in press, 2008).

In 2005, she moved to work at the Methodist Interfaith Health Program while serving as the Associate Director of Faith-Based Initiatives in the UTHSC's College of Medicine. Dr. Cutts was recently named the Center of Excellence in Faith and Health’s Program Director of Research and Praxis. She works explicitly in the area of evaluation and program development for MLH’s Congregational Health Network, Religious Health Assets mapping, and Integrated Health for congregations, community, as well as clergy and other leaders.

Dr. Cutts serves on several local community boards (ArkWings, Assisi Health Advisory, Hooks Institute, Mid-South Comfort Care Coalition) and works closely with many initiatives, including serving as co-chair of the disease management and faith community leaders working group of Healthy Memphis Common Table. She was part of the team that developed the model for Harbor of Health, an innovative primary care and wellness center. She currently serves on their Clinical Advisory Board and helped develop and implement their disease management program, Take Care. Harbor of Health combines best practices of traditional primary care with complementary medicine, information technology, health education, spirituality and disease management, allowing partnerships with businesses and not-for-profits to benefit the broader community. She participated in the World Council of Churches International Meeting on Mental Health and Faith Communities, held in Vellore, India in December 2007.

As the faith-health academic and community liaison in her work and community roles, Dr. Cutts hopes to help Memphis become the “Beloved Community” envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others. Dr. Cutts believes in the concept of faith as preventive medicine and is passionate about translating academic research to help the underserved and to redefine the way that medicine is practiced. She feels tremendously blessed with her work family and her messy, joyful home tribe: her two daughters (age 15 and 11) and two dogs. She has a twin sister and adores singing, altruism, dancing jigs, finding treasures at thrift stores, painting and writing.