Ongoing Projects: East Harlem Health Outreach Project (NY, NY) The Mount Sinai Human Rights

Clinic (NY, NY) Ministry of Health (Belize) The MINDS foundation and the

Sumandeep Vidyapeeth University (India)

The Aftermath of the Great East

Japan Earthquake of 2011 (Japan) Health Education and Relief

through Teaching (HEARTT) & Ministry of Health and Social

Welfare (Liberia) Ministry of Health

(St. Vincent/Grenadines)

The Program in Global Mental Health November 2013 Issue

Mission

The Program in Global Mental Health utilizes the students, residents, and faculty of Mount Sinai to enhance access to mental health services for people in East Harlem and around the world. This is accomplished through program develop-ment and training and education, with research done in support of these service and educational imperatives.

Mount Sinai Global Health Center and Department of Psychiatry

The MINDS Foundation and the Sumandeep Vidyapeeth University—Gujarat, India

This summer, I was lucky to be a part of the Mt. Sinai Global Mental Health pro-ject in Gujarat, a state in west India. I and two Mt. Sinai students worked at Su-mandeep University and in collaboration with the MINDS Foundation, a US-based nonprofit. Our research hoped to explore how individuals with mental ill-ness and their families view traditional healing for mental health problems. We asked about the type of treatments the patients received from healers as well as their satisfaction with that care. We also interviewed healthy community mem-bers to gauge how the community as a whole felt about traditional healing. Our interviews were conducted both at the university's teaching hospital as well as in communities around the hospital; around twice a week, we would travel by auto rickshaw to neighboring villages and conduct interviews. While reviewing our data, I was surprised to see how common traditional healing still was in the region; it was the first treatment option (before doctors or other Western care) for a huge number of our subjects

Living at the university was a great experience, as I got to meet many students

and see a completely different system of medical education than what I had be-

come accustomed to in the US. Despite their busy schedules, there were always

students willing to help us problem-solve, track down anything we might need,

and show us around Baroda, the nearby city. One of my favorite parts of the ex-

perience was our village visits. The residents of these villages were always in-

credibly generous with their time and space - willing to allow us into their homes

and take time from their work to answer all of our questions and make us feel

welcome.

Sam Lipkin

NYUSOM 2016

Editor, Clement Kairouz

Who’s involved?

Craig L. Katz, M.D., Director

Jan Schuetz-Mueller, M.D.,

Associate Director

Faculty: Amy Aloysi, M.D., MPH Steven Fayer, M.D. Matthew Hopperstad, M.D. Illouise Murillo, PNP Andrew Pearson, M.D. Anna Rosen, M.D.J James Squires, M.D. 2013-2014 Senior Residents: Anupriya Srivastava, M.D.

Sara Lozyniak, M.D.

Benjamin Angarita, M.D.

2013-2014 Junior Residents

Yadira Alonso

Milana Mor

Daniella Loh

Contact us: Craig.katz@mssm.edu

Jan.schuetz-mueller@mssm.edu

Clement.kairouz@mssm.edu

In 2006, Mount Sinai medical students who had gone to Belize on their annual Spring Break Abroad to provide medical and pediatric assistance raised a con-cern about unrecognized child abuse. The Department of Psychiatry sent a child psychiatry fellow with them on their next trip, but what they found in-stead was a situation characterized by vast unmet mental health needs. Belize has a population of over 300,000 people but had only one head psychiatrist and occasional foreign psychiatrists working their briefly on contract. From that trip grew an ongoing collabora-tion with the head psychiatrist, Dr. Clau-dina Cayetano, and the Ministry of Health. Belize has district mental health clinics throughout the country, and Mount Sinai psychia-try residents have been providing su-pervision and training to the psychiatric nurse practitioners who are the prima-ry mental health providers at these clinics. Based on a 2011 needs assessment, the current area of focus is in child/adolescent psychiatry, with future topics to include addiction psychiatry and personality disorders.

WHO Essential Medicines List

Advancing the Public Mental Health System in Belize

The World Health Organization ap-

proved an application submitted by

Mount Sinai physicians Dr. Craig

Katz, Dr. Anna Rosen, Dr. Hiwot

Woldu, and medical student Jasleen

Salwan to add risperidone to the

Essential Medicines List in July

2013. Introduced in 1977 and up-

dated every two years based on

submissions for revisions submitted

by parties external WHO, the list

directs drug policy in developing

nations worldwide. Despite the fact

that it is not obligatory, it aids gov-

ernment officials as well as external

donors set funding priorities.

WHO’s approval of the Mount Sinai

team’s application marked the first

addition of an atypical antipsychotic

to the List, addressing a major ne-

glected area of global health. It is

hoped that it will be followed by

many more victories for under-

served psychiatric patients across

the globe.

Jasleen Salwan

ISMMS MD/MPH 2016

TO DONATE:

1. www.gh-training.org

Specify “Global Mental Health”

under comments

2. Contact Dr. Katz or

Dr. Schuetz-Mueller

Current Publications Paudel, Gilles N, Hahn S, Hexom B, Premkumar S, Arole S, Katz CL. Impact of mental health

training on village health workers regarding clinical depression in rural India. Community Men-

tal Health Journal, 2013, DOI 10.1007/s10597-013-9630-6

Katz CL and Pandya A. Eds. Disaster mental health: around the world and across

time. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 36 (3), September 2013