James "Rus" Russell, III

I am a resident of Little Rock in the University District and have lived in the Central Arkansas area since 1997. I’m a former Pre-Med Biology and Philosophy major from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway with a special interest in political/legal philosophy and bioethics. I previously worked for the Arkansas State Medical Board as a Physician Credentialing Specialist for their CCVS Dept, during which time I filled many roles on various committees for the department (IT/Credentialing Liaison, Quality Assurance, JCAHO & HIPPA Compliance, Facilities Co-manager, Productivity Review Committee, and others). Following that, I worked at Arkansas Children's Hospital as a Medical Staff Coordinator. There I served on numerous executive committees dedicated to topics such as Nosocomial Infections, Long-Term/Acute Care, NICU/PICU QA, Community Outreach, Trauma-response Readiness, Emergency Room Preparedness, Negative Bariatric Pressure Room Readiness, and of course the Bioethics committee where I developed my interest in that field. During my studies at UCA I worked with the professors to establish the first Internship Program for the Philosophy and Religious Studies department. It was through this program that I worked with Family Service Agency to assist them in refining their Policy and Procedure codes, streamline their required reporting metrics, as well as re-wrote their intake and outreach paperwork to be gender-neutral/inclusive. I also co-facilitated court-mandated group therapy sessions for domestic violence offenders where we worked on anger management, de-escalation techniques, and many other inter-social and mental health issues. My wife, a UCA Graduate with her Master’s of Science in Counseling Psychology, and I own and have operated New Dawn Counseling, a successful and growing small business here in Little Rock that we opened as a single-provider private practice in 2014 that now has multiple clinicians on staff and serves not just the Central Arkansas region, but the entire state via our telehealth services.