In high school, Associate Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Anesthesiology Kimberly Sibille was heavily involved in swimming and gymnastics, interests that influenced her goals in college. When she attended the University of Auburn, Sibille majored in exercise science and worked as a health and fitness instructor.
However, it wasn’t until graduating from Auburn where Sibille truly found her passion and enthusiasm for fitness and wellness. She completed an internship in cardiac rehabilitation and exercise science and obtained an American College of Sports Medicine certification.
“It was in the process of teaching people about health and fitness that I realized that mental health was a key component in regard to helping people attain physical health,” Sibille said.
With her newfound interest in mental health, Sibille obtained a master’s degree in Counselor Education at the University of South Florida. She also worked as a fitness trainer for the school’s women’s gymnastics team, and she practiced as a licensed mental health instructor in various community mental health and inpatient psychiatric units.
Though she enjoyed her work as a mental health counselor, Sibille’s interests were always centered around psychoneuroimmunology — the study of the interaction between the body, the brain and the immune system. So, she became the clinical manager of a psycho-oncology program and was also involved in critical incident stress debriefing — which entailed collaborating with nurses in hospitals to help patients process extremely stressful incidents — for her local county and healthcare system.
“We worked with individuals in different stages of cancer diagnosis,” Sibille said. “We ran support groups and did inpatient consults and had a summer camp and all kinds of community education programs.”
A new focus in scientific research
Sibille also took interest in family medicine, and she eventually began working in family medicine as a part of the Behavioral Health faculty at a hospital in Tampa Bay, Florida. However, she continually sought more research training after noticing the importance of basing interventions on evidence-based decisions.
“There wasn’t good biological evidence for psychosocial and behavioral interventions,” Sibille added. “And so what I really wanted to do was develop my skills in research and develop my knowledge base in neurobiology, and more of the biological interface, and do research … to better understand the benefits of things.”
Sibille noted that her inexperience with research was a limitation for her to become involved with it as a clinician. However, the way she used her past skills to inform her future decisions ultimately made her a stronger researcher.
“To be quite honest with you, oftentimes the things that we think are challenges or obstacles, end up being the gift,” Sibille said.
Sibillie earned her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology with concentrations in Health Psychology and Neuropsychology at Fielding Graduate University. She also completed an internship in Clinical and Translational Pain Research through the University of Florida Comprehensive Center for Pain Research.
Remaining at the University of Florida for 13 more years conducting research, Sibille and her team discovered a neurobiological and physiological interface to stress, which are called resilience factors — qualities such as optimism and use of adaptive emotional regulation strategies that allow a person to cope with stressful events.
She conducts her research as Director of Pain Translational Research in Assessment and Intervention Lab (TRAIL).
Sibille and her team defined three primary goals for their current chronic pain research. Their first goal was to evaluate the differences between individuals with chronic pain — and identify those who are predisposed to worse outcomes. This connects to their second goal, which was to characterize “vulnerability and resilience factors” present in people with chronic pain. The last goal was to analyze the benefit of different interventions and how they can be used to optimize pain reduction.
“[The goals] would be beneficial to the patient, but also present some tools of evidence for physicians,” Sibille added.
Current and future endeavors
Sibille is now working in medical education, with the goal of integrating her research as she trains physicians and helps them improve treatment of individuals with chronic pain.
“Chronic pain is stressful and affects all areas of an individual’s life, and so it really is a condition that’s difficult to treat and affects all ages and runs across all health conditions,” Sibille added. “It really is a complex, poorly managed problem, and patients suffer a lot from chronic pain — and because it’s difficult to treat.”
Sibille noted that one of her favorite parts about her career is teaching, including giving seminars during didactics to both her residents and physicians who have been practicing for over 30 years.
“I love teaching and getting to see the lights go on,” Sibille said. “When I’m giving a lecture to medical students, and when I see them getting excited about what I’m talking about, it’s worth everything.”
Sibille recently published a research study involving behavioral and physiological reactions in horses. Temperament, she added, is present in humans and animals, because all are wired with a neurological infrastructure associated with stress and sensory stimuli sensitivity.
Just like how some humans can be easygoing, there are easygoing horses, mice or rats. Thus, they aimed to identify the more “vulnerable” creatures — human or animal — that do not do so well under high stress situations.
Humans and animals who are able to keep their stress regulated possess “conscientiousness.” which is a protective trait that results in better health outcomes.
“I’m very interested in both human and non-human models looking at this neurobiological interface and how we can improve animal welfare as well as human wellbeing,” Sibille added.
Sibille also transitioned into the role of a Joint Associate Professor at the University of Florida’s Division of Pain Medicine, where she plans to change how health professionals manage, assess, treat and monitor chronic pain.
“I am just beginning those efforts actually, this year,” Sibille said. “Reaching out, trying to put this out more into the medical community in addition to [bridging] more with physicians across specialties that treat individuals with chronic pain.”
