Dr. Suzanne Sisley, MD joined forces with her mother, Hanna Sisley, MD, a family practice physician to develop a thriving private practice in the inner city of Phoenix. They are reportedly the only mother-daughter MD-physician team in Arizona. Dr. Sisley transitioned to her full-time TELEMEDICINE practice starting in 2009, where she employs a full array of telecommunications technology to continue delivering high-quality medical care to populations across rural/underserved areas of Arizona. Sue is an Institutional Member of the American Telemedicine Association and serves on the ATAs Legislative and Policy Committee. She frequently presents at ATA International Meetings focusing on research Using Telemedicine to provide Addiction Treatment in Rural AZ. Sue also serves as Clinical Faculty at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center at the MercyCare Adult Medicine Clinic for indigent patients. Sue founded and serves as CEO of a non-profit corporation entitled Ensuring Tomorrow Productions.
Dr. Sisley completed her medical degree at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and proceeded to complete her five-year Residency Training at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in the fields of Internal Medicine and Psychiatry.Dr. Sisley has received many recent honors including the President’s Point of Light Award and the Leo B. Hart Humanitarian Award for “outstanding contributions made for social reform” by the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
NEW YORK — In a symposium on the issues and controversies surrounding marijuana, internist and telemedicine physician Sue Sisley, MD, discussed the design and aim of her FDA-approved phase 2 study of cannabis for PTSD in U.S. military veterans.
Sisley, who was terminated from the University of Arizona after becoming the principle investigator on the cannabis study, said she was anti-cannabis for many years of her life, though the veterans she was treating touted the drug’s benefits on various symptoms they experienced.
“I was dismissive and judgmental, then I started losing a lot of vets in my practice to suicide, and it became a big wake-up call,” she said. “… The veteran community has a higher rate of prescription drug overdose, and many vets discovered they can substitute cannabis for the more addictive medications they’ve been prescribed, which is how we started to examine this.”
The study, which is funded by a $2.15 million grant from University of Colorado, is the first controlled clinical trial in the world to evaluate smoked medical cannabis as treatment for PTSD.
After what Sisley described as a 7-year struggle with the government, she finally received the “golden ticket” to begin her research.
