TNT Open Mind Insights - Mental Health Interview Series

What if the fix for America's mental health crisis isn't more funding or more infrastructure, but common sense? Dr. Luke Bergmann has spent 15+ years leading behavioral health systems in New York and California — most recently as San Diego County's Director of Behavioral Health, now a Principal at Health Management Associates. In this conversation, he pulls back the curtain on why our system so of...

Most parents, and plenty of providers, assume mental health "treatment" means medication. A triple-boarded child psychiatrist explains what it actually looks like for kids. Dr. Bruce Leewiwatanakul is a pediatrician and child psychiatrist. He now runs integrated and collaborative care, the model built to reach kids with mild-to-moderate mental health needs before those needs turn into a crisis. In...

What does it look like when a patient becomes the CEO? Amber Williams walked into Janus of Santa Cruz suffering with substance use disorder as a teen mom with a newborn son and no insurance coverage left. Twenty years later, she runs it — and this September, Janus opens its first major infrastructure project: a 25-bed perinatal facility built so mothers in recovery won't have to be separated from...

What happens when you treat diabetes without addressing depression? Or prescribe insulin to a patient with no refrigerator? Dr. Alyson Myers has spent her career answering questions like these — and her answers challenge how most clinicians were trained to think. Triple board-certified in internal medicine, psychiatry, and endocrinology, Dr. Myers practices in the Bronx, where the gap between clin...

What happens when a provider speaks your language? Bilingual pediatric physician assistant Marcos Cota knows firsthand. Growing up in a Spanish-speaking household in Truckee, California, he watched families struggle to be heard in a system that wasn't built for them. Now practicing at Community Health Alliance in Reno, Nevada, Marcos is doing something about it. In this conversation, Marcos shares...

The biggest challenge in perinatal mental health is that providers aren't trained to recognize it. Kelly O'Connor, Executive Director of Maternal Mental Health NOW, shares how one mother's dismissed symptoms sparked an 18-year mission to transform perinatal mental healthcare. From training OB-GYNs to children's librarians, the organization has worked to close the provider knowledge gap that leaves...

Providers often see a foster youth who survived and think they're resilient, strong, and got-it-handled. But surviving doesn't always mean thriving. And having one’s basic needs met doesn't mean all their needs are met. Angelina Medina, Regional Lead at iFoster, discusses the critical gap between survival and healing for foster youth. Resources exist, but young people often don't learn about them...

What does it take to perform at your best when the pressure is at its highest? Super Bowl Champion and Performance Coach, Stephen Hauschka, spent his entire career learning how. In this conversation with TNT Open Mind Insights, Stephen breaks down the mental performance framework he built, which goes beyond athletic performance into the heart of what it means to be human under pressure. From missi...

What happens when the people closest to the behavioral health landscape — a Super Bowl champion, a state senator, frontline clinicians, and system architects — speak without a filter? Season 2 of TNT Open Mind Insights brings together leaders across behavioral health to confront what's broken, what's possible, and what it actually costs us to look away. From a lawmaker who spent nights wondering w...

What does it really mean to know the patient in front of you? In this episode of TNT Open Mind Insights, Dr. Sarah Arshad — triple board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist, pediatrician, and TNT Fellowships PC-CAP Co-Director— makes a compelling case for cultural psychiatry as the foundation of good pediatric care. From emergency rooms to rural communities where psychiatric services simpl...

Over 200 million Americans live in mental health shortage areas with zero access to providers. Meanwhile, patients cycle through ERs, primary care offices, and social workers— spanning multiple months of touchpoints where nobody stops to ask, "Are you okay? What do you need?" Clinical social worker and epidemiologist Madhuri Jha breaks down the systemic communication breakdowns across the mental h...

Dr. Emily Shipley is seven months out of residency, working at a federally qualified health center in Carson City, Nevada. Her patients drive 45 minutes from towns with populations under 2,000. When they need a psychiatrist, that's an eight-hour drive to Las Vegas—if they have insurance that's accepted. In this conversation, Emily shares what it's like to be the only mental health resource for pat...

Tamara Knox, Director of Ethics and Social Responsibility in Media at Ethical Narrative and Associate Clinical Social Worker (ACSW), joins TNT Open Mind Insights to discuss the power of ethical storytelling and trauma-informed photography in mental health and community healing. In this conversation, Tamara shares how she merged her photography background with clinical social work to create a new a...

In this insightful discussion, Dr. Gagliardi, Associate Director for Train New Trainer Fellowships, shares her unique journey into medicine—from a non-medical family background to becoming a leader in medical education and physician well-being. Dr. Gagliardi combines her dual training in internal medicine and psychiatry to provide holistic patient car. Learn about her approach to maintaining compl...

Dr. Marcovitz discusses why understanding co-occurring disorders is essential for effective treatment, showing how many patients cycle through residential programs without proper diagnosis of underlying mental health conditions. He emphasizes the importance of motivational interviewing—not just as a clinical technique, but as a powerful tool for reducing provider burnout while improving patient ou...

Join Dr. Jane Gagliardi as she sits down with Dr. Matt Gerenz, a psychiatrist at Happier Living in Los Angeles, to explore his unique journey from North Dakota Army National Guard combat medic to addiction medicine specialist. Dr. Gerenz shares how 12 years of military service shaped his patient-centered approach and why he chose to pursue additional training through the TNT (Train New Trainers) F...

Join us for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Steve Delisi, Chief Medical Officer at YourPath, Inc., and Co-Associate Director for the Train New Trainers (TNT) Fellowships PC-TEAM at UC Irvine. In this episode of TNT Open Mind Insights, Dr. Delisi shares his transformative journey from emergency medicine aspirations to becoming a leading voice in integrated addiction and psychiatric care. Who Thi...

Join Dr. Arshad in an intimate conversation with Dr. Lin Lu, a pediatric and adult psychiatrist who calls her patients "friends" and approaches mental health care with extraordinary compassion and wisdom. Dr. Lu shares her personal journey from immunology researcher in China to becoming a mental health advocate, inspired by her sister's struggles with severe mental illness. In this powerful discus...

Mental Health Leadership & Innovation: Dr. Dustin DeMoss on Transforming Healthcare in Texas Join us for an in-depth conversation with Dr. Dustin DeMoss, TNT Allied Faculty, where we explore the critical intersection of mental health, substance use treatment, and medical education. As a psychiatry residency director and vice chair of education, Dr. DeMoss shares his unique perspective on addre...

Join us for this deeply moving conversation with Jessica Wilson (Cruz), CEO of NAMI California, as she shares her personal journey from a daughter in crisis to becoming one of California's leading mental health advocates. In this candid interview, Jessica shares her experience of her mother's first psychiatric hospitalization, how it shaped her 15-year career at NAMI, and her vision for transformi...

Join Dr. Rimal Bera in this insightful interview with Dr. Melissa Wagner, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at the University of Cincinnati, as she shares her journey into reproductive psychiatry and discusses why maternal mental health is now the #1 morbidity following childbirth. Dr. Wagner is triple board certified in general psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, and pediatrics. Her work...

Join Dr. Rimal Bera in this insightful interview with Dr. Melissa Wagner, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at the University of Cincinnati, as she shares her journey into reproductive psychiatry and discusses why maternal mental health is now the #1 morbidity following childbirth. Dr. Wagner is triple board certified in general psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, and pediatrics. Her work...

Join us for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Gail Reilly, a family medicine physician who discovered her passion for addiction medicine. In this powerful interview, Dr. Reilly shares her journey from military medicine to becoming a champion for treating substance use disorder in primary care settings. She discusses the life-changing impact of buprenorphine, the critical importance of peer recove...

Join Dr. McCarron in this eye-opening conversation with Jennifer Friend, CEO of Project Hope Alliance as she shares her powerful personal story of experiencing homelessness as a child in Orange County and how it shaped her mission to support invisible youth facing the same challenges today. 🔍 What You'll Discover: • The hidden reality of student homelessness - over 32,000 identified students in O...

In this deeply moving interview, Dr. Luther Philaya, an addiction medicine specialist with Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, courageously shares his personal journey from perfectionism and addiction to recovery and healing. This conversation addresses the rarely discussed mental health crisis among healthcare professionals and the cultural factors that contribute to physician suffering. Dr. Philaya...