Dr. Chrysanthe L. Parker, Ed.D., J.D.
F-AAETS, AAETS-CIT/CFT, CMHP, CFT, ECA-LM
Chief Executive Officer & Chief of Clinical Operations
Divisional Director of Traumatology and Forensic Services
Nature and Scope of Practice: Dr. Chrysanthe (Chrys) L. Parker is a multiply-credentialed integrative healthcare provider, with 21 years of practice experience, founded upon 17 years of clinical education and training. Her unique practice serves not only those who suffer from classical forms of mental illness, but is also focused on the specialized needs of trauma-impacted patients who have sustained serious or catastrophic physical injuries, and have then developed serious comorbid traumatic stress injuries (TSI) or traumatic stress disorders as a result. She is both a treating and testifying clinical practitioner who renders evaluation and treatment services to many types of patients from all areas of the nation. In situations where she is either legally required (pursuant to a patient’s directive) or legally ordered (by a court of competent jurisdiction) to do so, Dr. Parker is well equipped to testify concerning traumatic stress injuries which her patients have suffered, and the profound effects which trauma exerts on their life, health, and survival. Among the 8000 patients whom Dr. Parker has served as a clinician are victims of critical burns, gunshot wounds, sexual and tortious assault, amputations, vehicular crashes, structural collapses, head injuries, spinal injuries, post-concussive injuries, toxic gas exposure, and mass shooting. She also treats depression, anxiety, and disorders stemming from acute loss and bereavement.
Dr. Parker is a Fellow of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and holds professional credentialing from its certification board in both Illness/Medical Traumatology and Forensic Traumatology. She is one of only two practitioners in the United States to hold both certifications simultaneously. Dr. Parker is federally certified as a Mental Health Provider by the TRICARE federal insurance system and has been registered in the National Healthcare Provider Registry of the Department of Health and Human Services since 2001. She is also professionally credentialed as a Pastoral Counselor, Field Traumatologist, and Critical Incident Stress Management facilitator. As a medical and clinical educator and academician, Dr. Parker has served many of the nation’s most distinguished hospitals, medical institutions, the Department of Defense, and the US State Department. In addition to being a Member Associate of the Academy of Certified Physician Life Care Planners, she holds clinical membership in the American Counseling Association, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, the Association of Traumatic Stress Specialists, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and the Institute of Stress. She received a life appointment to the Order of Barristers in 1977, and to the FBI Academy for Citizens Alumni Association in 2010. Currently retired from active legal practice, Dr. Parker is in her 44th year as a member of the State Bar of Texas. She is married to a Texas cattleman and divides her time between homes in San Antonio and the ranch country outside Uvalde, Texas.
Academics and Authorship: Dr. Parker holds a B.A. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin (1974), a Juris Doctor degree from St. Mary’s University School of Law (1977), and a clinical Doctor of Education hybrid degree in Pastoral and Community Counseling from Argosy University (2016). In 2006, Dr. Parker was honored to receive an appointment to the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio as a Clinical Instructor of Physicians in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. She served in this appointment until 2010, when she was promoted to the stipendiary position of Assistant Professor, Adjunct, at the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Health Professions, an appointment she holds today.
During Dr. Parker’s 21 years in clinical practice, she has authored over 104 peer-reviewed clinical courses in trauma, approved for both the academic instruction and continuing education of physicians, medical students, nurses, mental health professionals and military officers. As a provider of instruction to 32 hospital systems, medical centers, military command centers, and academic institutions, Dr. Parker has lectured at over 130 professional conferences in the U.S. and abroad in which she has trained over 17,500 personnel. She is the co-author of 8 books, including 7 instructional texts in trauma for the Department of Defense, and a book available to the public on PTSD recovery for military veterans and families. (I Always Sit With My Back To The Wall: Managing Traumatic Stress and Combat PTSD) co-authored with Dr. Harry Croft, M.D.). Among her writings are courses in the field of trauma and personal injury, which are certified by the American Medical Association as Category One (the highest tier) of continuing instruction for physicians. While educating others, Dr. Parker continues in the diligent pursuit of her own continuing education, by taking courses of instruction from Harvard and John Hopkins Medical Schools.
Legal Background: Dr. Parker was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1977 and is in her 44th year of membership in that body. During her career at St. Mary’s University Law School, Dr. Parker (nee Chrys Lambros) was the first law graduate to win all three consecutive (freshman, mid-law, and senior) Moot Court Competitions. She received a faculty appointment to serve as an Instructor of Legal Research and Writing in her senior year, and later was elected by the Law School faculty to membership in the Order of Barristers for exceptional achievement in legal writing, briefing and oral advocacy. She teamed with the Hon. John Cornyn (now the senior U.S. Senator from Texas) at the State Moot Court competition in 1977. In that same year, Dr. Parker received the International Academy of Trial Lawyers Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Art and Science of Advocacy.
Dr. Parker went on to become the first female attorney to receive court appointments in capital cases originating in Bexar County, and the first female attorney to receive appointment to a judicial clerkship at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. There, she was selected by the distinguished jurist, Hon. Leon B. Douglas, to serve as his briefing attorney and assisted him in the authoring of some 75 judicial opinions. It was an incomparable legal education. Dr. Parker worked as Associate Attorney at the Branton & Mendelson law firm (now Branton & Hall) handling personal injury, criminal, appellate, and family law cases, before entering solo practice in 1980. She has submitted briefs before the U. S. Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and has engaged in oral and written argument before the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and the Texas Supreme Court.
Clinical Training and Experience: The course of education, training and clinical experience which prepared Dr. Parker to ultimately pursue a career in mental health and trauma services has spanned more than four decades. Her courses of post graduate clinical training alone (if placed end to end) total 24 years, including 12 years of mental health and behavioral science, 12 years of medical training, multiple clinical residencies, 2 physician supervised fellowships, and 10 years of doctoral studies in clinical diagnosis and care, and clinical and field research. In 1997 (20 years after first entering law practice) Dr. Parker expanded her efforts into studying the relationship between human spirituality and the psychology of medical illness. As the recipient of the prestigious Bishop Everett Jones Episcopal Scholarship, Dr. Parker entered the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, where she completed a three-year Masters-level theological curriculum of study. She received her ecclesial licensure in 2000 and started a new phase of her life’s work in the field of medical chaplaincy. Her entry into the service of the Methodist Healthcare System was accompanied by the completion of 2 years of psychotherapeutic training at the Ecumenical Counseling Center, alongside a concurrent 3-year clinical residency at the Methodist Hospital System Center for Behavioral Health. To enrich her hospital skillset with medical knowledge, Dr. Parker cross-trained at the Texas Department of Health EMS Academy and served for several years as an active EMS field medic.
Hospital and Non-Profit Based Practices: In the years that followed her entry into medical chaplaincy, Dr. Parker’s career was fast paced and innovative. She overtly challenged existing norms and institutional barriers, to forge unprecedented pastoral-medical collaborations in the creation of programs to span both inpatient and outpatient continuums of care for victims of critical burn injury and sexual assault. From 1998-2003 she served in four separate positions, concurrently: (l) as Pastoral Director and head chaplain of Uvalde Memorial Hospital, (2) as a senior chaplain-clinician on the City of San Antonio’s sexual assault forensic unit headquartered at Methodist Hospital, (3) as a night chaplain serving the entire Main Methodist Hospital, and (4) as the Director of Bereavement Services of the Methodist Healthcare system. In 2002, Dr. Parker became the Executive Director of the Texas Burn Survivors Society and in 2006, she founded the non-profit Burn Recovery and Research Foundation in San Antonio, where she continued to provide charitable care, treatment and collateral services burn-traumatized individuals and families.
Medical Sponsorships: Through the committed efforts and extraordinary personal support of the physicians by whom she was trained and mentored, Dr. Parker was immensely fortunate to receive 7 years of ancillary medical training-in-fellowship which would not ordinarily be afforded to a non-physician. From 2003-2005, Dr. Parker received appointment as the Director of Holistic Clinical Services of the Methodist Healthcare Ministries Wesley Clinic. Working shoulder to shoulder with the physicians at “The Wesley” (San Antonio’s largest private free clinic for the poor) Dr. Parker received extensive training in the fields of primary psychiatry and psychopharmacology for trauma. From 2006-2010, while serving as Director of the Burn Recovery and Research Foundation, and as the recipient of a $200,000 clinical grant, Dr. Parker created the first program in the U.S. to provide totally integrated care and case management to pediatric burn patients and their families in a model which seamlessly bridged inpatient treatment at University Hospital with 5 years of outpatient care at the Burn Recovery and Research Foundation. As the program’s Creator and Director, Dr. Parker was honored to receive a 5-year appointment to University Hospital’s Medical Staff, with special assignment to the Pediatric Burn Specialty Unit. She also received 5 years of training-in-fellowship in the field of rehabilitation medicine for burns. Concurrent with her clinical training, Dr. Parker pursued a 10-year academic and clinical doctoral program specifically designed for theologians desiring to cross-train as clinician-academics. She fulfilled yet another year of residency, passed 7 days of comprehensive national examination, performed 3 years of research and defended the accompanying clinical dissertation, and earned her second doctorate in 2016.
Service to the US Armed Forces: From 2005 to 2012, while pursuing her behavioral science doctorate, Dr. Parker became a contracted expert in traumatic stress remediation for the Department of the Army and the Army Medical Command. Over a period of 7 years, she co-authored 7 texts on military trauma and accompanying 40-hour long advanced courses, which she and her colleague Dr. Glenn Sammis taught in multiple iterations for six years. Eventually, Dr. Parker was personally contracted by the Pentagon to create an entirely new and improved methodology which could be used by US Forces in the remediation of traumatic stress and PTSD at the battlefield, where traumatic stress injury had risen to epidemic proportions. Dr. Parker accepted this challenge, as well as the invitation to pilot the program in the combat theater. In 2010, pursuant to orders of CENTCOM Commanding General Ray Odierno and embedded with US Forces of the Army III Corps, Dr. Parker became the first traumatologist ever to deploy to an active combat theater. There, she and Dr. Sammis cared for trauma-impacted troops and provided clinical instruction to Army MEDCOM personnel. In 2013, for her work in Iraq, Dr. Parker received the Army Chief of Staff’s written commendation and service coin. Today, Dr. Parker regards the opportunity which she was afforded in 2010, to serve US troops in combat, to be the most significant honor of her life.
Personal: Now 69, Dr. Parker is married to Joe Parker, Jr., a Texas cattle rancher, avid pilot, and her husband of 36 years. They are the parents of three adult children and their spouses and are the grandparents of four. Chrys and Joe live under broad expanses of the West Texas sky, in the ranch country outside of Uvalde, Texas.