Welcome to Mind Dive, Menninger's podcast for mental health professionals, with Robert Boland, MD, senior vice president and chief of staff, and Kerry Horrell, PhD.
Podcast Focus
Twice a month, they dive into topics that fascinate them as clinical professionals and hopefully fascinate you, too. They examine dilemmas faced by professionals here at Menninger and colleagues across the nation while working with some of the most challenging cases. They explore the latest research and other trending topics on the minds of psychiatrists, psychologists and others who are interested in the treatment and study of the mind.
Drs. Boland and Horrell also make it a goal to cover information that gets little attention in formal training programs.
Most Recent Episodes
Episode 36: Frontline Insights on Global Mental Health
Did you know there are very few psychiatrists in Rwanda? That country, whose population has experienced an intense amount of strife, is not alone. Many mental illnesses go untreated in developing nations because of the lack of mental health resources.
Stephanie Smith, MD, director of the
Program in Global Mental Health Equity at
Brigham and Women's Hospital, learned this and many other key insights while working abroad in Rwanda to help improve the population’s access to mental health care diagnosis and treatment.
In this episode of The Menninger Clinic’s Mind Dive podcast Dr. Smith shares her insights and experiences in looking at how to create greater access to mental health care globally where resources are scarce.
An instructor in Psychiatry for
Harvard Medical School and a co-director of Mental Health at
Partners in Health, Dr. Smith worked in Rwanda to set up a collaborative care model for mental health care. She worked through the government to utilize the existing primary health care clinics and systems to incorporate mental health care resources for patients. This has been particularly successful in treating noticeable and severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder by providing the appropriate medications.
“We were at rural continuums, like general hospitals, primary care centers, and the community in thinking about how we incorporate mental health into that care continuum,” says Dr. Smith about her experiences in Rwanda, where her objective, on behalf of Partners in Health, was to strengthen the mental health care system.
“At the time each district in the government had been successful at getting one psych nurse and one psychologist at each district hospital…about 40 or so in the country. Knowing the population is 10 million, it's not very many. That’s why integrating into primary care system makes a lot of sense.”
Dr. Smith further explains that expanding care involved looked at existing providers and what basic mental health care services could be provided by a non-specialist provider, in a continuum where they are supported by specialists. Dr. Smith served as one of the specialist consultants. This consultative model is how services were incorporated into the general hospital or clinic setting, with basic mental health care delivered by primary care nurses, and working at the community level, where community health workers are this liaison between villages and communities and the health system.
Dr. Smith explains some of the unique aspects of this work from a cultural perspective as well, in how some cultures view mental health and mental illness.
For those who prefer to read instead of listen to the podcast, check out this episode's
transcription.
Meet the Hosts
Dr. Boland is an educator at heart with decades of experience teaching and mentoring psychiatry residents. In addition to his roles at Menninger, he is the executive vice chair of the Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine.
A psychologist on our Compass Program for Young Adults, Dr. Horrell also loves teaching. She completed a predoctoral internship and postgraduate fellowship at Menninger and Baylor College of Medicine.
Both are well read, love canines (and have to resist rescuing too many) and are curious about many subjects.
Join Us
We hope you’ll join us on our podcast journey. And if you have a topic in mind that you would like us to dive into, drop us a note.
Mind Dive is available on all of the places you find your favorite podcasts.
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