By Philip Walzer

Kurtis Hooks (M.P.H. ’05, Ph.D. ’20) knows what it’s like to suffer from chronic illness.

Hooks was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at 12. He went in and out of hospitals, undergoing multiple surgeries and losing school time, until his condition stabilized when he was a college sophomore.

That experience, Hooks said, instilled a drive early on to help others. In 2000, he got his first job, as a part-time crisis intake technician at Virginia Beach Psychiatric Center. He never imagined he’d someday be running it as CEO.

In 2009, Hooks moved to Chesapeake Regional Healthcare, where he became director of behavioral health. Hooks returned to the psychiatric center as CEO in 2019, drawn to the mission of “taking care of individuals at the worst point of their lives, keeping them safe and getting them on a long-term trajectory to realize a better quality of life.”

With 100 beds and 250 employees, the psychiatric center is the largest facility for acute behavioral care for adults in South Hampton Roads. Old Dominion University partners with the center, referring students with acute mental health issues.

Hooks said he gains the greatest satisfaction from seeing patients improve, including those who were not admitted voluntarily. “No outcome is assured, but every single department and team member links back to providing a service that helps someone through a crisis. On the other side of that treatment are healing and connection and hope.”

In 2003, he enrolled in a master’s program in public health jointly operated by ODU and Eastern Virginia Medical School. “I appreciated the equal quality from both sides,” he said.

Hooks continued his studies in ODU's doctoral program in counseling. “From start to finish, it was a top-flight experience. I got to take classes with the professors who wrote the textbooks for them.”

Jeff Moe, Ph.D., associate professor of Counseling and Human Services and graduate program director of counseling for the Department of Counseling and Human Services, said Hooks was “creative and definitely wanted to master the material. He was interested in finding what works and encouraging counselors to be more innovative in how they do things.”

Hooks is on the advisory boards for the Virginia Beach Department of Public Health and ODU’s counseling program. He said the increased attention to suicide among veterans is another example that “behavioral health has at long last found its voice after being mostly an accessory in the health care domain.”

The Virginia Beach Psychiatric Center’s 24-hour crisis line is 757-627-LIFE (5433).