LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
Dear MONA members,
The events of racial injustice over the past few months (and years) have been heartbreaking. I, like many, am deeply saddened by the recent violently casual and senseless death of George Floyd. Viewing his death at the hands of those who are supposed to serve and protect was traumatizing. It took my breath away. It has been heart-wrenching to watch the aftermath unfold but I understand the pain.
The disparities, although not new, leave me feeling a sense of hopelessness. I read a social media post the other day from an African-American woman who is several months pregnant. She wrote, “[the effects of this type of discrimination] is praying that you have a daughter so you don’t have to endure the pain and suffering of raising an African-American son in the U.S.” That too broke my heart.
When we think about the disparities of healthcare and the stress that is complicating the perinatal course and overall health of African-American women, it is times like this that our patients of color need our organization, our specialty, and all of our voices the most. I don’t have any answers today because, as we know, these are longstanding systemic issues. I simply write to acknowledge those, like myself, who feel overwhelmed, exhausted, frustrated, anxious, fearful, and disheartened.
I especially want to reach out to our members and colleagues who are African-American. We are here for you. Let us know how we can be of service. Thank you to allies who have checked-in with me or simply asked how I was doing. We need you. If you haven’t done so, I encourage you to check-in with your African-American friends, family, colleagues, and/or trainees. To know that someone sees your pain and your struggle can decrease the feeling of invisibility. Finally, I advise that we consider how these events impact the emotional health of our patients, particularly our African-American mothers and their families. Let us keep working on ways to optimize our support.
Sincerely,
Crystal Clark, MD, MSc
MONA President
Member Spotlight June 2020 : Nancy Byatt
Introducing the MONA member of the Month –Nancy Byatt
We are expanding our monthly newsletter to feature our members. This month we are learning more about MONA member, Nancy Byatt, DO, MBA, MS, FACLP. If you would like to nominate yourself or a fellow member for the Member of the Month, contact Deepika.goyal@sjsu.edu for more information!
We also would enjoy hearing your ideas for the newsletter or any other aspect of our Marcé of North America organization! Please send your ideas to Deepika.goyal@sjsu.edu
1. What is your current professional role?
My current role combines clinical work, education, research, and policy related activities. I direct and provide clinical services for the statewide program MCPAP for Moms, for which I am the Founding Medical Director. In that role, I oversee the program and provide psychiatric consultation both via telephone and face-to-face and trainings for frontline providers serving pregnant and postpartum women. I am also the Founding Executive Director of the Lifeline4Moms Center at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. This is a center that I created that aims to improve maternal and child health by integrating mental health care into maternal and child health care. We do this through education / capacity building, consultation and research. I also direct the Division of Women’s Mental Health in the Psychiatry Department at my institution.
2. What drew you to the field of Perinatal Mental Health?
Growing up, I saw my mother work through the impact of my grandmother’s untreated postpartum psychiatric illness. My grandmother’s illness resulted in my mother being separated from my grandmother for 6 months in her first year of life. Ever since I was a young child, I knew the importance of maternal mental health because I saw how my grandmother’s illness impacted my mother and her how challenging it was for my mother work through that. Then during my training, I served many pregnant and postpartum women who came seeking help after they struggled unaware of their illness, or aware and in silence, for months and sometimes years. These combined experiences inspired me to become a perinatal psychiatrist and researcher to break this transgenerational cycle for other families.
3. What is your current research involvement?
A large part of my job is conducting research. My research focuses on discovering, implementing, and evaluating practical and sustainable approaches to improve the detection, assessment and treatment of perinatal mental health and substance use disorders. We are proud that our Lifeline4Moms center has had continued federal funding for projects focused on developing and testing scalable interventions for addressing perinatal mental health and substance use disorders in medical settings.
4. What does a typical work day look like for you-including before and after work?
My typical day is quite different during COVID. I get up at about 4:30 or 5 AM. The early hours of the days are my best and most productive time for writing because I can focus uninterrupted. At 7 am I go for a trail run in the woods with my dog Momo. I love trail running - it’s my sanctuary. I then take a bath and get my kids ready for their virtual school days. Then I’m typically in meetings most of the rest of the day. I am a single mother and have my kids all the time. During COVID I have been home on own with my kids. Since COVID, I have created space in between meetings and throughout the day so I can check in with my kids and make sure they’re attending their classes and getting their schoolwork done. I stop working around five and spend the evenings with my family, we have dinner and often get outside and go for a walk. We are all in bed by nine or 930. I’m at my best in the morning, so I go to bed early and rise early.
5. What are you most excited about in your current work?
I am most excited about leveraging areas of synergy by learning from colleagues with complementary expertise. For example, we are currently expanding our center and developing partnerships with pediatric colleagues. The mother-child dyad is critical to all that we do, and we are thrilled about this opportunity to expand our team to include projects focused on maternal and child health. We are also developing partnerships focused on improving inequities and disparities. Our vision is to ensure that our commitment to addressing inequities and disparities is core to the culture of our center and at the forefront of the all the center activities. I am also excited to be working with researchers that employ different research methods. For example, we just got a large PCORI grant funded to examine claims data to evaluate perinatal psychiatry access programs across the US.
6. What’s one of the most important things you’ve learned from a mentor or role model?
I am grateful to have had many amazing mentors. The most important thing that I have learned is to become assertive. In the beginning of my career, I spent a lot of time and energy focusing on pleasing everybody else. I have learned to set boundaries, be direct, and resist the temptation to twist myself into a pretzel for everybody else. I find that this not only helps my productivity and quality of life, but it also helps those around me. I have been fortunate that many of my mentors have focused on helping me develop these critical skills, in addition to guiding me to become a rigorous and successful physician-scientist.
7. What are your favorite things to do outside of work?
I have a deep love and appreciate for the outdoors. It has always been my sanctuary. I love to trail run, backpack, paddleboard, ski, bike, and hike. I especially love to trail run. It is deeply restorative for me. A silver lining of COVID it is that I’m spending even more time outside than usual. I spend a large portion of my weekends running on my own and hiking with my family.
8. What is the most interesting book, podcast, TV series, or movie you’ve encountered in the past year?
I just read an excellent book called Essentialism by Patrick McGregor. The book posits that less is more. The author makes the case that when we try to fit in everything we ultimately don’t benefit ourselves or those around us. I find this an ongoing challenge, so this book resonated with me. Another silver lining of COVID is that it has stripped my life back to the basics. Prior to COVID, my life was too full, and the pace was too fast. Now that I have been forced to scale back dramatically, I can decide what I want to add back in as the world slowly reopens.
Northwestern Fellowship
Obstetric-Fetal Pharmacology: Practical Prescribing and Research Methods Update Edited by Katherine Wisner, Catherine Stika
Congratulations to several of our MONA members with Citations in this journal all featured below. Please find the citations for Hannah Betcher, MD.
Volume 44, Issue 3,
April 2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/seminars-in-perinatology/vol/44/issue/3
Betcher, H. Interpreting the pharmacoepidemiology literature in obstetrical Studies: A guide for clinicians. Semin Perinatol. 2020 April; 44 (3) : 151225.
Betcher,H. A Common clinical conundrum: Antidepressant treatment of depression in pregnant women. Semin Perinatol. 2020 April; 44 (3) : 151229.
Crystal Clark
Clark, CT. Psychotropic drug use in perinatal women with bipolar disorder. Semin Perinatol. 2020 Apr;44(3):151230.
Jennifer Sprague
Susan Benjamin Feingold PsyD, PMH-C
ADVOCATING FOR WOMEN with Postpartum Mental Illness
The book is available in paperback, hardcover and in an e-book format through Rowman & Littlefield, as well as on Amazon.com and at BarnesandNoble.com websites.
REGISTER FOR 2020 MEMBERSHIP
Email: INFO@PERINATALMENTALHEALTH.COM
Website: www.marcenortham.com
Phone: 219-465-1115
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Twitter: @marcenortham