Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Addressing Mental Health Within the Minority Community : A conversation with Dr. Shari Moore
83 Plays2 years ago
In commemoration of minority mental health month Dr. Sheri Moore and student doctor Erica will be discussing mental health within the BIPOC. Tune into the conversation as we cover Dr. Moore’s interest in Psychiatry as well as her experience working in a correctional facility. We also tackle the stigmas surrounding mental health and “Navigating the medical journey while maintaining space for mental health”
Disclaimer: The opinion and views expressed on our podcast do not reflect the official stance of the Student National Medical Association.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Dr. Sherry Moore and her focus on BIPOC mental health
00:00:20
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Thank you for tuning in for another episode of The Lounge. Today, we have a special guest here with us. And this is Dr. Sherry Moore. And she's going to discuss specifically mental health within the BIPOC community. So Dr. Moore is a recent residency graduate of Community Health of South Florida. I said that correct, Dr. Moore? OK.
00:00:47
Speaker
And she graduated from their
Dr. Moore's forensic psychiatry interest and minority representation
00:00:50
Speaker
psychiatry program. She is most interested in forensic psychiatry, and will be joining the field as a lead psychiatrist at a local correctional facility. So thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Moore. Is there anything else that you'd like to add to my welcome?
00:01:11
Speaker
No, you're welcome was great. I would say that I am a DO. I went to A.T. Still University in Crooksville and then I took a little bit of a gap along my four-year residency path. So I just graduated and I started my job today. So today was my first day attending.
00:01:28
Speaker
Congratulations.
Dr. Moore's educational journey in neuroscience and medicine
00:01:30
Speaker
Now we're real. But yeah, my interest is in forensic psychiatry. I ended up in the correctional field sort of haphazardly, but I think it works best because a lot of our patients, inmates are minorities. And it's the first time they've probably seen a black doctor and also a black psychiatrist. So I think it fits perfectly.
00:01:48
Speaker
Wow, I would have to agree I'm not on that end yet but even, I mean in every field right, we're just, we are the minority and some people even get to like their 60s before they've seen a black position so
00:02:05
Speaker
Kudos to you, it's awesome. And we're so happy to have you here with us today. So
Choosing the DO path and connecting with patients
00:02:10
Speaker
we're going to go through some questions for you. Can you speak specifically to your trajectory to medicine? I know you mentioned you graduated from a DO program. And why you decided to choose this path?
00:02:24
Speaker
OK, so I did my undergrad at Smith College, which is an all women's college, and I was already interested before then in high school in neuroscience, so I was a neuroscience major. I only applied to neuroscience programs and Smith College had the best package for me in terms of diversity, really helping women find their voice in a very male dominated field and how to take your stem background and put it into something applicable.
00:02:49
Speaker
So from Smith College, I ended up going to Cleveland Clinic and I worked there for research for a few years. I'm not sure if I wanted to be a PhD or if I wanted to do the route to go through and be a physician. And what I figured out from doing a bunch of research is that I don't really like getting negative results. Like that experiment didn't work.
00:03:09
Speaker
That's great. And it pushes the project forward, but it's not rewarding in the same way as it is working with patients. So I ended up switching to a nonprofit, applying for medical school. And on my off days, I would take vacation and go interview. So no one knew. And I got in and then decided that I would do DO because my mom, she
Challenges in accessing healthcare in minority communities
00:03:30
Speaker
had a cancer diagnosis around the same time I was applying. And her oncologist was a DO. And the way that he approached my mom, she's Caribbean. She's from Trinidad.
00:03:39
Speaker
The way he approached her when she said, I don't want to do chemo. I'm scared of medications. I don't think this goes with what we think. Maybe I'll just eat healthier. All of these things that come up with our anxieties about being in medicine and our anxieties about Western medicine. He was the only person that took the time to really talk with her and sit down and say, well, what's uncomfortable about it?
00:04:00
Speaker
What do you want me to do instead? If we do music therapy first and then you do the chemo, what are your questions? So he took the time with our family in a different way, and this was at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, and
Cultural impacts on mental health perceptions in the Caribbean
00:04:10
Speaker
allowed me to sort of see that DOs approach things a little bit differently from that perspective. I did a DO program, and I decided from there that's what I wanted to do. I hated most of the things in medical school when I went to my clinicals. Every single one, I was like, oh, I don't want to do that.
00:04:27
Speaker
I don't want to do that either. And then I came back and I remembered, you're a neuroscience major. The thing that you're good at that actually helps push the field forward is that when people see you, they instantly connect with you because you look like their sister. You look like them. And so now it wasn't me just doing the same gallbladder procedure and we're doing another gallbladder and we're doing another gallbladder. Like I hated surgery, as you can tell.
Passion for correctional psychiatry and inmate rehabilitation
00:04:52
Speaker
it was your face and now t to me and usually they p they want to talk to the if it's a medical student to talk to the white guy i the one that you know is p now they're looking at me to talk to the guy in the to me and say, hey, you k
00:05:11
Speaker
Okay, I know the song came out recently. So now we have a springboard. So I decided from there that as a minority, it was important for me to do psychiatry. It was something I was good at. I like to talk anyway. So I was able to use those things and there's no there's no
00:05:28
Speaker
lab test for depression, right? I have to get to know you first and to see if that's what's really going on. So it requires me to have a different skill set and it requires me to be brown to talk to you in some places. And that's okay. So I just felt like, you know, you can be good at a lot of things. And I was on the tarts for a bunch of different specialties, but that's the one that I made the most difference just by being who I was and being casual and wearing sneakers every day. And that was fine. And my patients were cool with that.
00:05:57
Speaker
And so I ended up in psychiatry and now forensics. And I can't imagine doing anything else. I can't imagine doing anything else. There's no other doctor I want to be. I look at other people doing their questions. I'm like, ugh.
Mental health support in medical education environments
00:06:11
Speaker
Good thing that the depression is on the docket today. So it's where I ended up. And I think that throughout medicine, you find those little keys where you're like, this fits. This makes sense. This feels like home. And you've got to definitely pursue those. Even if someone is telling you, you can't pursue those. It was told a million times, just do family medicine. You can do both. Or just do something. Like a specialty is a just anyway. It's difficult in every single specialty. Find the one that you love, and that doesn't feel like work.
00:06:42
Speaker
You just gave us our Sunday sermon, so thank you. Find what you love, do that. And it doesn't feel like, I know it's work, but it doesn't feel like work because you're in your passion. I love that. Thank you for sharing. And also I love, so can I ask, did you apply solely to DO schools based on your experience with your mom?
00:07:02
Speaker
I did not. I did half and half. I think I applied to like 30 schools. I did 15 and 15 because my first score of my step one or level one was not great. My mom had got diagnosed just then and so I failed the first time but I had to apply again and I passed the second time. So I already knew there's a ding on your application. So I applied really wide like you're supposed to and half and half. I actually got into more MD schools than DO schools. But when I went to the interview,
Insights from corrections and advocacy in medical settings
00:07:30
Speaker
The only ones who asked me about myself were DO schools, which may have just been the onslaught of the things that I chose. I was mostly in the West and stuff. I really wanted to go to Ohio State because I'm a Ohio State fan. And it just ended up being that I ended up matching to DO and that's how it was. And I think that
00:07:49
Speaker
I also, Kirk's feel super small, right? But it focused me because I would love to be outside, I would love to do other things, but it focused me in a way that allowed me to be successful in a really hard place where there was only 100 kids, right? There's only 100 of us in our medical school. So when I'm having a terrible day, somebody notices when I'm not there. That's important when you're thinking about medical school and you're thinking about college, any of those places. Who's gonna be there? Because no one tells you to show up. You missed three or four days, now you're behind. Now you're section one.
00:08:19
Speaker
Now we're looking at, oh, I've got to get an A on this next exam because I've got to have an average of 70 something percent. So I went to a place that ended up fitting sort of how I am and how I need to have someone to hold me accountable. I need to have someone to spring ideas off of. I'm an external processor. If I'm studying, I need to have you there next to me. And we've got to talk about if the patient thought about this, what would you look like? What kind of guy would he be? What would the symptoms be? And that solidified it in a way that other kids were
00:08:48
Speaker
reason through the material, but they were good at just reading and retaining it from that or just questions. And I just wasn't that kind of person. So I went to a place that was small enough that I think made me more successful. And then MD programs that I looked at like Michigan State gave me a conditional. I would have to do one year post back first because they were unsure about my scores. And I was like, well, the DL school was cool with me. They said, I'm good to go. So I'm going. That's where I'm going. I love it.
00:09:15
Speaker
Love it. And, you know, you brought up having like, you knew where you needed to be and where you would be most supported based on your needs. So I guess attending A.T. Still, Kirksell University, that's in a rural area. Am I correct?
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, okay. So compared to like rural white inhabitants, you know, people of color frequently encounter more obstacles to care for and have lower health incomes. I'm sorry, outcomes, right? So have you observed any differences regarding mental health within the minority community in a rural population versus like a more urban city population?
00:09:59
Speaker
So I feel like we forget or we just sidestep that rural has a lot of the same obstacles as urban. They don't have the same access, not because it's not there. It's because it's miles and miles away. So in a different way that urban people don't have access, like we don't have access because those providers are priced out or we don't have transportation to get there. They don't have access because transportation is four hours away. So it's similar.
00:10:29
Speaker
I mean, Kirksville, Missouri is not a fancy place because you would want to go and not super minority anyway. But I felt like a lot of the people that were there had the same issues that urban people were going through in terms of access, pricing, just lack of the health care literacy because we're doing other stuff. We have farms. We have other jobs. That's important. Like us going to work every day is important. That other stuff is a health care thing that we have to take care of.
00:10:58
Speaker
next. Oh yeah, my cousin but I never did because I' down for a whole day and do this and come back. behind if I do that. So in that faction and mi in general in the health
00:11:19
Speaker
lacking our access because as a group, we don't have knowledge of when something is actually an issue or is it something that we all just experienced? How many of us have said, oh man, I'm so depressed, I didn't do XYZ? So it's almost normalized in the realm to a point where we don't think that we need to pursue treatment because it's so normalized or it's kind of a flippant behavior. You tell us like, man, I'm really struggling. And they're like, I mean, we all struggle.
00:11:48
Speaker
trying to empathize with you by saying, yeah, I feel you like I struggled as well, but also it makes it almost dismissive because now you're saying, well, that's just a normal part of life. At what point do we have a litmus of us needing actual treatment? And we forget that even when things are going great,
00:12:06
Speaker
You could have a great day but you could still springboard something off of somebody else like a therapist or a health care worker and come up with a different perspective that you're not used to or how many of us don't have a mom or dad to call or a grandparent to lean on because they're not in our family sector and so that we have to start filling in for those empty places.
00:12:30
Speaker
We have to fill him with a good college friend. We have to fill him with a good therapist who can help you say, you know what? Don't call him that. That's super tough. It's a bad idea. Don't do that. And here's why. Because when you're with him, you're this way and can give you that mirror that you need. Sometimes psychiatry has nothing to do with anything being wrong, but has everything to do with how do we get better at self-regulating and understanding what our triggers are, understanding
00:12:58
Speaker
how we're perceived, understanding how we convey information. It's very similar, I think, to like the diagnosis of a schizophrenic. You talk to someone who's schizophrenic, they have no idea that something is wrong. And they're giving you sentences and they're looking at you like, don't you get it?
00:13:15
Speaker
And you're like, no, the way it's organized in your brain doesn't make sense to us. So how do I help you organize it? I can do it with medication. I can do it with cognitive behavioral therapy. I can do it with having to see you more often so I know what there's lapses in your treatment. I can do it by talking with your family so that they understand your condition and they understand your symptoms and what to look out for. I can do it with talking to you about how you need to sleep better.
00:13:41
Speaker
and how that's important is, how we think about inf we eat. So it's the same w to you what's going on w being effective and I'm n potential either. So we h that joining our doctors to help us is just as imp has to go to the place whe it's not passive. It's not everyone goes through, but
00:14:11
Speaker
You said so much to your point earlier about our community. We empathize with each other regarding our traumas or if we are feeling depressed, whatever have you.
00:14:28
Speaker
It, I think the empathy like yeah girl I feel you. It doesn't push you towards well what are you doing about it. How are you going to help yourself so I think that's really important. And it's really good to know that we have people like yourself that are in this space.
00:14:48
Speaker
Because the field of psychiatry, especially, how many times have we seen a person of color who's a psychiatrist that's at the front line for our treatment? So I'm really happy that you are amongst the number. And I think, too, there's a point there where we don't have enough people that say, and then I got an Alexa Pro, and I didn't have to struggle so much. There's this sort of a community field that we all struggle
00:15:17
Speaker
So struggling is our baseline. Yes. You know, there's a bunch of people not struggling in the same way. Like they get up and they're like energized to go to work. That's a real thing, which all of us are like, I don't remember that day because I started medical school, but you have to know that there's a litmus and you can't see it because you haven't, it's been so long since you felt that way. You forget what it feels like to not have that weight on you. And so a lot of times. Say that again.
00:15:44
Speaker
So a lot of times you have to start treatment to get to the point where you're like, that is better. And then we go, hold on, let me increase it just a little bit more because there's a better, better. And you're like, no, there's not. And then they take it for a couple of weeks and they're like, that is a better, better. And you're like, see, I told you. And you get to the point where those things are lifted because our empathy is like,
00:16:06
Speaker
It's tough every day. It's hard for my mom. It's hard for my cousin. She doesn't have depression or so she thinks because she doesn't know what those things look like. And she said it's tough. So we have to really reframe the way that we think about these things and not to
00:16:21
Speaker
make ourselves have these symptoms to say, oh, I'm sick, right? But to make ourselves know that there's a plateau that we can reach that feels more comfortable where we can be better moms, we can be better students, we can be better friends, we can be better neighbors that when the guy doing something crazy next door, you're like, he's struggling, it's okay. And you go in your house and it's not something that shatters your day or it changes the way that you feel about that or doesn't become an issue, you know?
00:16:48
Speaker
I agree. And you mentioned, so Trinidad and Tobago, that's your background, right? My mom. She's Indian from Trinidad and my dad is Lithuanian and Black. So talk to me about the stigma.
00:17:03
Speaker
of mental health and how, like, for anybody who even wants to have these conversations, whether they're a medical student, a healthcare practitioner, to even kind of shift, you know, or get to shift or start the conversation to shift the mindset and the narrative behind that. Because, you know, we're strong. Caribbean people are strong. And, you know, we're just going to get through. But to your point,
00:17:31
Speaker
I'll tell you that my mom's nickname for me is Screamy Mimi because like I would like have a meltdown and be like I can't and the test is due and something and she'd be like there you go Screamy Mimi again and I'm like it's not normal for me to feel overwhelmed like that and so
00:17:47
Speaker
I think that the shift really comes from us getting better words to put to what we're feeling. Because a lot of us don't have the correct vocabulary to describe what's going on. I just feel tired. No, you have low motivation, which means that when you have a task in front of you and you know you have to do it, you have zero motivation to pursue your career. That's the language that needs to be there. Because if I tell you, no motivation to pursue my career, people are going to say, that's weird. You've always been super driven.
00:18:17
Speaker
Not that you're tired because tired is general, right? You have to put it to the point where I used to get really excited to see you guys and go on like our normal girls night. And I don't even look forward to it anymore. I just have no, I'm able, like abolition. I have no interest, no anhedonia. I have no interest in what's going on, right? I can't make an emotive response.
00:18:40
Speaker
If we start using better vocabulary about what is actually happening and how we're feeling, or we start getting to a point where we're talking with someone to get feedback on what vocabulary that could be, I think then we can start really having a better conversation about it. Because I hear you in a different way if you say, I have no motivation to do stuff I used to do. In a different way than you say, man, I'm just tired. I've just been overworked. I'm tired.
00:19:08
Speaker
that doesn't carry the same weight. And unfortunately, in our kind of Caribbean culture, the way we talk to people is not by tone. Because we don't hear when you have that sad tone. It's by the collective and how we can make the other person feel what we feel. So it's a different way that we relate to each other. So I think that needs to be said. And we're so used to
00:19:34
Speaker
sort of dealing with thi because we're overwhelmed in the world. You know, i It's dangerous to eat the to do this. We have, you kno chronic illnesses that ar So our general life is a lot. I don't want to p
00:19:52
Speaker
but instead of I'm not pu I'm using you as a spring to clarify what's goin let me just talk to you f sit down. I have a cup just call you on my ride that's how I normally am I mean I use depressio
00:20:13
Speaker
Because most people have had some bout of it or have recovered and don't always need intervention for that. And that's true. But some ways it would have made it take us maybe six months of us to get back to where we needed to be. And we just struggled through it, right? But what if in those six months you missed two job opportunities and you failed three tests and now your trajectory has changed?
00:20:33
Speaker
I feel you, you don't need help, but guess what? Time is money too. And it's awesome, right? I missed the last birthday of someone and then they passed. You didn't know that was what was going on, but maybe it's better to get some assistance as a low level.
00:20:51
Speaker
to help us to get back to where we are. Because of course, yes, we all believe the body can heal ourselves. We can do it ourselves. That's always what we say. My mom thinks you can handle her cancer ourselves. I just won't eat sugar. And you're just like, that's not physiologically how it works. And why not give yourself a crutch? Why do we always turn down help? And that's true. We always do that. We turn down help because I'm strong. I can do it. But there's points where being strong and doing it on your own actually makes the journey way longer.
00:21:19
Speaker
So let's do that. Just like I would be happy to take a study guide from you if you already went through the chapter. All right, give me the study guide. Let's do this. Because that's part of the framework that you have to change it to. Because that's what's going on. And if you're anti-medication, cool. That's fine. I have no problem with that. But there's other ways that we could be seeing each other. Even if I just see you monthly, it gives you an hour of you to have no one else in the room for you to say what you need to say.
00:21:47
Speaker
Even if nothing happens, even as I do no farm or kinetic, no farm at all, no pills, that alone is a different kind of reprieve that we don't have in our households a lot of time.
00:21:59
Speaker
And we don't have social equity where we can take the kids to the grandparents and leave them there. Not all of us can do that. So how do we get an hour by ourselves? You have a gym membership that you can go to? Usually not in our neighborhoods, right? You have a spa membership you can go to? No. You go to the beach, right? There are places where other people have built in quiet time and self-effective time, and we don't have that. So use your insurance to go take your hour and talk to somebody about something else.
00:22:29
Speaker
That's right. Therapy is amazing. That hour, or however long, 15 minutes every week, however you want to split it up, I'm honest to God. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. So, okay, we're kind of off topic, but I'm loving it because I feel like this is necessary.
00:22:49
Speaker
Let me see if I could kind of steer us back. So, my bad. No, please. This is good. It's good for us. And it's good for our listeners, because again, SNMA, right, medical students and those who have gone through medical school, those who are coming into medical school. And I think on the podcast specifically, we really, you know, we have our resident, I call him our resident mental health person.
00:23:13
Speaker
Dr. Alwyn, so we tried to really focus on how to better or give content that will aid in bettering our mental health. So this is, listen, golden for me, honestly. So I want to talk about now you are entering, you're going to work at a correctional facility, correct? Yeah. So
00:23:41
Speaker
How did you end on land on work in there? Like, did you feel a passion for the incarcerated? Like, just put me in that space for a second. My family because they're like, you're such a pretty girl and they're gonna like, you're in a jail, right?
00:24:00
Speaker
It's fine. And it's fantastic, actually. So when I was in medical school, I did two state hospital rotations where some of them were incarcerated and were under the forensic field and some of them were civilians. And honestly, my forensic patients always behaved better because they were used to a regimented system. They knew there were repercussions if they didn't take their meds.
00:24:22
Speaker
there were differences the brown and we were cool. stuff I was interested i I sort of lean towards st whatever. I did a rotati
00:24:37
Speaker
Memorial Strong Hospital and they have a inpatient facility that's all like felons. They're all high level incarcerated felons and the security there was crazy and it was great but what you realize is that all of these patients at some point there was a change. I like to find the change. When did you become because honestly, I feel like all of us could be criminals, right? Because the socials contracts are what we're what's the criminality, right? You push me two times in a row, I might lose it.
00:25:07
Speaker
What changes that between my regulation and somebody else's regulation? And if I have the psychiatry element to it, I have some disease process that's contributing to it, when I lift that disease process, you're a regular guy who shouldn't be here.
00:25:24
Speaker
that's wild. And what we because you had that ins get fully rehabilitated. has to take care of you a you saw people at different people that had murder ch that helps clean the table
00:25:42
Speaker
So if I can't know your crim intent just by looking at your race, you can't know then how can I judge you a somewhere because I just d capable of. How many peop they were like, oh, right you was a nice guy. They're at some point with someo
00:26:05
Speaker
There's all that they're all regular people. So how do we get these people to actually be rehabilitated? How do we actually figure out what's disease process and what's not? And forensic psychiatry has some interesting avenues because they have certain exercises where we're looking at, do they understand the difference between right and wrong?
00:26:24
Speaker
at different levels by as questions to see. Do you un did you have other influences influence of some sort of d have some sort of diseas hallucinations, auditory or
00:26:41
Speaker
So that part really inte through and I decided on went through residency, I because outpatient, the b small. Okay, I'll see you may or may not have takin there. It may have been fo you may have decided in t want to take it. You may it up. Okay, we're back at
00:27:05
Speaker
I'm not moving things fast enough for me. And I'm sort of a quick pace kind of person. And I love to see the zero to 60. So I wanted to do inpatient at CHI community health of South Florida incorporated CHI.
00:27:21
Speaker
We have an impatient unit and it's a crisis unit and it's so everyone that comes under Baker Act in Florida that either a law enforcement person saw and they had some issue, they would be brought in for our facility under crisis and be evaluated within 72 hours by a psychiatrist and we could hold them and see, etc.
00:27:40
Speaker
And what I saw was you ha went from super psychotic or undiagnosed schizophrenia break and then you medica them or you help them an you're having a different to 60 was what I really en to give somebody back whe
00:28:00
Speaker
or very depressed, suicidal, right? And after a couple of times of us seeing and us starting an actual disease process, putting a name to it, saying this is what it is, and then having a treatment plan, now you're in a position where you're thinking of your future. When I met you, you weren't. So that turnaround was much more rewarding than my outpatient people, where I know I get to be a part of their family, and I'm moving through you, and now you have another kid.
00:28:27
Speaker
the visit was always like to get you to where I w six months with anybody t going to be in a totally do I have to wait out this successful? Can I just where I'm like you were yesterday and that was wil there was a guy behind you
00:28:48
Speaker
So I knew I liked inpatient for sure. And I knew that in my especially in Florida, I don't speak Spanish, I'm a different kind of brown. I'm the other brown. So that's detrimental sometimes because I don't speak Spanish, but incarcerated, unfortunately, all of our inmates and patients are black.
00:29:10
Speaker
That's not the best way to want to have those patients be your patients. But I know for a fact that this is the first time that they've been screened for PTSD because they finally got booked and they have to be seen by me. Or they just caught a murder charge, right? And they must be screened by me. I have to see everyone that has a murder charge that's pending.
00:29:32
Speaker
So that's a huge thing that you are aware that you have been accused of taking someone's like, whether or not you did it, I don't care. Someone I'm interested in. I'm interested in how you're processing that. Or you got sentenced and now you have to be seen by me because you just got a sentence that you thought you were going home and now you're not. How are you going to deal with that? I am probably in a position to see people at their worst.
00:29:54
Speaker
and be able to give them some semblance of normal seabag and some semblance of autonomy. How many times they don't get to open their own doors, they don't get to see when they eat, they don't get to see what they're wearing. But at least with me, you can say what you want to say. And the first time you can say yes or no to a medication.
00:30:13
Speaker
They have no other autonomy anywhere else. Or their diabetes isn't well managed and no one else is around to see them. And I can step in and say, okay, let me look and see what's going on, right? Because at least I provide some sort of clarity. They have other stuff that's going on and they just want to talk sometimes about what's going on. Man, I have a kid and he's got sickle cell and I don't know. Let me talk to you about the disease process. Now I'm quieting your anxiety only by speaking to you.
00:30:39
Speaker
How nice to be able to give somebody that gift in a very terrible situation and to be able to say that. Or you're being abused in the corrections facility, right? Well, who's going to help you? The other COs? No. The other inmates? No. So at least I am able to step in and say, what are we really doing here? How can we leave him there? How do we move him to where he needs to be?
00:31:03
Speaker
So that's sort of how I ended up in corrections. And in real life, I had a friend that was working in Jackson and I applied and they said, you have a great personality and like temperament to deal with those things because it's not. It's not.
00:31:21
Speaker
as flowery and fun and fulfilling because these are all difficult stories that you're going to hear, right? But I need to be able to spend time to articulate with that person on the other side and tell them, you know, you have schizoaffective disorder. No, I don't have that. You're like, okay, well, let me talk to you about what it means. Is there some times where you feel like you're talking to people and they don't understand what's going on? Yeah. Do you feel like it's hard for you to convey your information to people sometimes?
00:31:45
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so let's start there and let's build out so that they actually have tools so when they do get released, that they can actually pursue in the community and understand why it was so hard for them to get a job beforehand, why it was so difficult for them to deal with their family beforehand, how they end up here, how did we get into that altercation? Because I didn't know what was going on with me and they didn't know what was going on with me. Let me get you to a place where now you're able to sustain yourself to the best of what America will let you with a felony or whatever you have going on.
00:32:14
Speaker
So that you know yourself better. So I think corrections is a really interesting population. It's super hard in a lot of ways. It's dangerous in a different way. But I also like at the end of the night, I know that he either took the medication or he didn't. Someone was there the whole time. I know if it was missed. I know who missed it. I know all those things were outpatient. I have no control.
00:32:36
Speaker
So that's my long, very winded spiel. That was a very amazing winded spiel. Because I think we all consider aspects of medicine we would consider going into, right? And there was a special on HBO years ago of a female. I think she was a Black female who was working in corrections in the season. But to hear your take and how you actually treat and advocate for these people is just
00:33:04
Speaker
and our people, because you said you see nothing of black and brown faces there. So yeah, that was very informative and hopefully, okay. And even to like, so we'll have like a patient come in, I'll read his last name. And the other guy that I'm shadowing is Puerto Rican. So still a minority, but still different, right? And so I'm like, I'm a patient. He's like, yeah.
00:33:27
Speaker
So the other guy read his whatever, whatever, we mo it's important for me to because when this guy he spiritual to us, it's, you know talking to us sometimes, r normalize it, right? But I'm still gonna give you quiet that down so you ca
00:33:49
Speaker
So that approach wouldn't have happened from the other guy, but it will with me. And so why not be able to use your platform and like use who you are as a person to understand that nobody else is going to look at the difference between the name and go.
00:34:03
Speaker
you from Jamaica? I know where you go up. And I e the other day and I said, goes on from Miami. And um born in Haiti and he'd ma I said, your mom will be about you not actually be you're right. Don't tell it. it. So it's like five sec you can give back to some
00:34:27
Speaker
that's a tight situation. And that was just cool for me to connect with him because I know my mom was the same way because I was born here and not in Trinidad. And so like I have claimed Trinidad, but like, not really. You know, I'm Trinidad adjacent. So right.
00:34:43
Speaker
So there's a lot of stuff that I don't get because I wasn't growing there. And my mom will make fun of me a little bit for that stuff. But I definitely know that I was raised by a Caribbean mother because I go other places. I'm like, oh, that's not Caribbean. Only I do that. I got it. Right. Only you got it. You understood it. So I'm like, oh, that's what I understand now. Because I was in like a Caribbean association in college. And then I realized, oh, African-American and Caribbean-American.
00:35:08
Speaker
different. Oh yeah, they'r weird stuff that I do th
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah, so to be able to connect and give that person the same sort of like family feel when there is a place that they don't have a family at all. And to be to be soft, where even me as a tough person, I'm seen as as tough, aggressive, pointed, direct, blunt, all these other places at every other hospital setting. But guess what? In corrections, I'm the nice one. I'm the soft, cuddly one.
00:35:41
Speaker
And that's cool. I could definitely see, are you, are you from the East coast originally? Like I'm from Ohio. I'm from Ohio, Ohio. Okay. So I was gonna say some people like New Yorkers, for example, they're probably the rough person in a soft setting. Exactly. You put them in, you put them in a really rough setting. Now they are the cotton. We're so sweet. I'm so nice.
00:36:07
Speaker
Oh my god, thank you for listening to me because the CEO was like, get out here. And I'm like, oh, don't talk to him like that. He's older. So it's nice to not be seen in that way and to sort of be rewarded and welcomed for being brown. How many places are you celebrated like that? Nowhere. Nowhere. They're like, oh, we have one. And you're like, cool. But this way, every patient is like, hey,
00:36:38
Speaker
That's what's cool for me. So I just enjoy it. It's new for me. I have a feeling that I will probably stay in corrections. The CFO of the corrections, her father was incarcerated and that's why she got into corrections. So she's IM that leads the whole facility. And that's what's her story. She goes, I wish my dad would have been taking care of better while he was incarcerated. I could have seen him in better conditions. So that's why she went into corrections.
00:37:05
Speaker
So we all sort of have li of why we end up there. Bu to see that we feel like
00:37:14
Speaker
that your story, man, people are going to be inspired and watch. I guarantee you after seeing this, like, maybe I should give corrections a go. It's really interesting. And the difference is like, so you would never think that like giving someone a diagnosis, right, would change their housing location. But in corrections, it does.
00:37:37
Speaker
Okay, what does this do if I move them to general population because he's fine? What other anxieties is he dealing with? What does that mean? It's a whole different level of medicine and I think it's interesting too because we're always so closely tied to laws
00:37:52
Speaker
like I would love to go t this and then I could do and do J. D. Expert wit of stuff. It gives you s just being a clinician w I have to sometimes um go patients and talk with t or with the judge and say taking his meds, but look h miss taking a shower and
00:38:15
Speaker
that can't be good we have to make sure that he's doing all right there and they'll say okay let's medicate him okay thank you because otherwise how do i get him to be better you know right so just those kinds of things it's kind of nice it's not just every day i see a patient every day i see a patient every day i see a patient which
00:38:34
Speaker
And you mentioned rehabilitation. I have a question that I want to ask, and I'm trying to think of how to correlate the two. So in corrections, there is a need for them to be rehabilitated, whether it's through meds, through counseling. There is a system in place or that you think needs to be in place for them to get better. Is that correct? Yes. OK. So in medical school, right?
00:39:02
Speaker
I feel like there is a lacking in a system for people's mental health to be rehabilitated, if you will, in medical school. So we recently lost one of our former SNMA members, Dr. I don't want to mispronounce Dr. Nikita Mortimer. Dr. Nikita Mortimer, it's a suicide. She was an anesthesiology resident.
00:39:30
Speaker
Let's have a discussion, just your take on mental health and medical school, mental health and residency, and how you think the aspects of just training as a medical student, as a resident, are so incredibly taxing on mental health and well-being.
00:39:53
Speaker
They are, I think that in medicine, we have the same sort of perception that like it's always hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it, right? So we're already building up for us to have a litmus of struggling and uncomfortable days that's supposed to be our baseline because we're in medicine and it's just uncomfortable, right? But there's a difference when we are the only voice trying to push change.
00:40:20
Speaker
I have been on the backlash of me saying, this isn't working. This is broken. Hey, these attendings are bad. This is what's going on. They treat me differently. Hey, I'm not able to do this. This is not OK. In my medical school, I remember one day I went to the parking lot of PACOM, and there was a physician that had a car out there, and he had a Confederate flag in the car. And I was thinking to my head, how do I learn from you in the class
00:40:47
Speaker
And I know this. I can't unknow it, right? You haven't said anything to me. You haven't treated me any other kind of weird way. But how do I sit here and know that? Or one time a professor made a comment like, oh, I can't take I can't see this radiologist like this radiograph. I can't tell it from a China man, like as a joke, like I can't tell this from a China man. Well, what? So we already have more
00:41:17
Speaker
anxiety, more thoughts, just being the person th
00:41:26
Speaker
When we try to go up and push change, now we're a target. Because now they know it's us that's pushing the envelope. So we have to do it, but we have to do it in a way that's smart. And that means that I have to be able to have a core group of people there that I can springboard ideas off of, that checks on me in a different way, that I can say, man, I don't feel like doing anything today. I couldn't even get out of bed today. And that can be OK. And we have a solution for that.
00:41:55
Speaker
And it not be, well, let's just study a little bit, right? It has to be, let's go outside. Call your mom. Do you need to take time off? Is there a way for us to do FMLA? Is there a way for us to go see somebody else? How can we do something? Because I think all of us at some point have struggled, like crazy struggled, where if we told somebody else, they would have been like, oh, you weren't okay.
00:42:18
Speaker
I think all of us have done that. I know I did. There were blocks where I would watch an episode of Netflix and do one packet and be like, oh, that's all I can do today. Because I was just so overwhelmed by what was going on. And it's the first time that we have so many pressures. And I think our families, for the most part, are not doctors. So when you call your mom to be like, man, I got 87 on this exam, and now I got to get it whatever, they're like, you'll be fine.
00:42:43
Speaker
You're like, I am not fine to sort of understand how much pressure that that is. And so it's difficult then to reach out again and re explain it because you feel like you're almost saying the same thing over and over again and re saying it. So
00:43:00
Speaker
I think that when we are in these positions, residency and otherwise, we need to go to a place that has people that we can share with. My program director at Community Health of South Florida is a younger Puerto Rican male who is from the area. And he gives me such calm being able to talk to him, frankly. I don't have to professionalize it up. I don't have to say anything extra. But having him in place before when the other program director was there, having him be there,
00:43:30
Speaker
has felt like the greatest gift. So I can go in there and be like, man, this is bull, this is what happened. I don't have to be professional. I don't have to write it. I don't have to put it in the form. I don't have to do anything like that. And having someone like that in the residency program, who you think you connect with, who you think cares about his residence, who you think will move your schedule around if you need a break,
00:43:54
Speaker
Maybe you had, I had a bunch of really hard rotations back to back and I needed a break and they moved my schedule around so that I could have something where I was on a lower acuity when I wasn't on nights again for the next month, right? Having someone in the residency or in your medical school, when you go to do these interviews, look for someone like that where you think,
00:44:14
Speaker
that's going to be my guy when I'm in when I'm in residency and he's going to be able to help me and advocate for me. I had other attendings that really wanted to understand my personality and wanted to understand why I'm the one that's always so mouthy in the in the meeting.
00:44:29
Speaker
Well, because I have a lot of stuff on me and that all of these things, it's like triggering, right? So when you say another problem is added to the list, what about the other problem you didn't fix last week? I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but I have a lot of concerns. I just want to know. These ones all affect me, just one or two of those affect you, but every single one that we bring up affects me. How do I get perceived differently than the other guy over there who has a family, whose dinner's ready when he gets home versus a girl who moved down here by herself, doesn't have anybody else?
00:44:58
Speaker
What are the differences there? Having an attending who's willing to understand and stratify how they speak and how they interact with us is there. Also, all doctors are not teachers. We get hired to be teachers, but all of us are not teachers. So look for people who have a passion for teaching, who want you to learn it no matter what. I can give it to you this way, right? But a tutor or someone else is going to give you three different ways. Which one do you learn best at?
00:45:24
Speaker
look for a program like that because a lot of us learn in the same way. All of us have undiagnosed probably learning disabilities and things that are there because we didn't know because we were the first kid or we were the only kid who was trying to pursue that path. I'm the first one so I have no idea and then I feel like you know you don't process when you when you write.
00:45:45
Speaker
Oh, no, I didn't know that. That's why I talk so much. Interesting. But we didn't have anyone that sort of tell us that, you know? So look for people that are engaged with the actual people. They don't have to all be brown. They don't have to all be whatever. Like I said, I went to Kirk's, so I had a lot of weird stuff happen to me there because it was Kirk's show in Missouri. But I had people that were interested. I had a good core group of friends that were interested in where I was. And I had the ability to do my clinicals at Cleveland Clinic back home.
00:46:12
Speaker
So that also helped me be successful because now the last two years I'm back home, I'm staying nearby, if I need something, I feel comfortable, it's a bigger city, all these things. I'm hooked up with Cleveland Clinic, they're giving me tools that I may not have gotten from somewhere else. So make sure that you're looking for those things when you're looking at a program. And at the end of the day, we're all struggling in some way, whether you think it's hyper-acute or not, but
00:46:38
Speaker
We have to tell somebody. We have to talk to each other. Don't let it go where it's been weeks and you haven't said anything to anybody. And that happens because it's happened to me too where I'm like, man, I haven't talked to a single soul today. I've been in here all day studying and I'm trying to push through this litigation so that we get a wellness committee. Dang, nobody else is doing that except for you. Like why do you always take it upon yourself? But also who's going to advocate for me more than me?
00:47:03
Speaker
Right. I need to get a T. All right. You know what? Let me call Erica. I'm going to tell Erica what I'm doing. Maybe she could help me on this, right? And then Erica's going to call somebody else. And now there's four of us instead. You have to sort of start sharing these sort of things. And we have to be willing to like take the 10 minutes out of our study to talk to Erica for five seconds just to make sure she's cool. And little things like seeing patients and you tell them, oh, you look great today.
00:47:30
Speaker
That changes their perception of how they're doing that day. Nothing but just repeat what you're thinking. That's a really nice whatever. Sometimes that small modicum of like happiness that we can give somebody just to be clear with them changes their perspective. I thought today was shitty, but maybe I do look nice today. Okay.
00:47:51
Speaker
It's very small, but the way we have to check in with each other is crazy. And I think that we have to continue. Don't let just one person push the litigation through. I do that everywhere I go. I'm the loud one. Thanks, Shari. Hey, can you go tell them that we didn't get this and this? I didn't like that I had to work through weekends in a row. Can you tell them? So I do it because I'm the one that's articulate, that has the voice, that doesn't mind, doesn't mind being in trouble, right?
00:48:13
Speaker
but there were so many tim fighting everybody else's there behind me. I love fi I'm used to it. I have to it affects me anyway, ri if it's not, they're not they will come for me at th other groups that they're
00:48:31
Speaker
So make sure that your LGBTQ group that's at the residency program or at the medical school is tied close with SNMA so that you can fight things together. So it's not just always pushing it through. OK, cool. Fight it with the disabilities group. Yeah, you're right. Not only do we need to have a ramp for them here, but we also need to have accessible things for the computer staff if I can't afford a computer. See how that's similar? Access. Get it? Same thing. Leadership.
00:48:59
Speaker
you have to team up with other people because what it ends up being is it's always on our back and we're like the little brawn of freaking medicine and we're trying to do everything. We have no help but I need help right recruit people to help you in a different way or the one that you're doing a program for say you're on somebody's paper and that that's the attending and you're doing research for that. Hey you know what I actually need you can you advocate for me
00:49:23
Speaker
on something else. You kn that could be a white male your work. I'm working fo cool. We're not work for
00:49:36
Speaker
How about that? We have to realize how much power we have and what we say, and they need us. If we don't reply, and there are no students, and there are no doctors, what happens? The whole system bottoms out. So I like to go into situations knowing that you need me as much as I need you. Right.
00:49:55
Speaker
So you got 160 grand for super cool. I only saw I'm in florida. But guess I'm gonna need you to c for scrubs because I wou
00:50:13
Speaker
you know what? It's food how can you help me make s day. And so those things residents before me and by that we did. And so now for you while you're on c how many days I didn't e clinic tons before that h
00:50:35
Speaker
And I can afford it. This is cool. And that in itself is a better day because now you're feeding yourself, you're eating, you're sleeping right, little tiny stuff like that, which you may not think is measurable and may not help the mental health of like the group. It really does. It also gives me 10 minutes with my other residents to sit down and eat together because we're all going to lunch at the same time. That changed the whole culture of how we were feeling at residency.
00:51:01
Speaker
And these very small but big changes definitely help. You can still think about stuff like that. What would make me feel like, maybe I'm not getting respected as a doctor, maybe we have trouble with some of our interpersonal stuff. Okay, hey, can you give us all unifying scrubs so that they know that we're all residents? We're not baby doctors, we're not med students, we're not whatever? Unify us that way. Provide us with all scrubs so now we all look the same and now you know I'm a resident doctor. And I put that order in and that's who saw the patient next.
00:51:29
Speaker
Think about it from a bigger perspective and see how we can push these things through and team up.
00:51:34
Speaker
And if it doesn't serve you, be like, okay, who's a DIO? Who's above him? Who's above him? Because somebody there is far enough away from medicine where it's not that what's supposed to be hard, they're far enough away to see the compassion to really bring humanity back to it. So you can't find it in your core group because everyone's a physician and everything is difficult. And I used to walk seven miles in the snow and blah, blah, blah, that mentality.
00:51:59
Speaker
Go above, okay, are you a human? You're not? Okay, go above. Okay, you on the hospital? You know, our residents are sad. You know, we haven't had a day off together. You know, we get like maybe three hours, you know, to do what we need to do? Go above. Find to where you could find the person who has enough perspective to say, that's not really a lot of time. Some of those people have kids. Some of those people are by themselves. Maybe we should have Thanksgiving where everyone comes because some of the people don't have families here.
00:52:27
Speaker
Little stuff like that will make those things feel more approachable, easier, better. Go to places where you can either get home if you need to, fly home, right? Or you have a grandparent that's there. Things that will ground you, and then get a core group of friends where you can say, hey, this is our pack, we're a team, all right? Some days, I'm going to need you to put in 80, and I'm going to be only at 20. And some days, I'm going to need you to cook dinner for me. Let's do Sunday dinners together.
00:52:54
Speaker
We used to do that so that we would see each other and at least at least on Sunday you knew you had some leftovers and you had a meal. So we see stuff like that.
00:53:03
Speaker
It's like taking accountability for your own mental health and just making sure. I'm an only child, but I have a family each place I go because I don't have anyone else to rely on. That stuff's on me. So you have to sort of make it that way. One of my good friends passed right after I left for clinicals. Suicide touches all of us. We've had two or three residents that have passed.
00:53:28
Speaker
I love Pamela Wimble, she's a wonderful lady and she pushes through a lot of legislation about how we should be talking and just the horrors of medicine and stuff. And so relying even on her, like I went to a retreat with her before I started residency. I was going back and I just had had a lot of stuff that happened and it was difficult. And I went with her in Oregon for a week. And just to be able to see that it's not just me, right?
00:53:56
Speaker
Every residency has these same issues. So let's make a global pact together. Let's reach out even further than just my residency program. Now I have people that are in other residency programs that I can springboard ideas off of. Hey, what did you guys do when this happened in your residency? They had better ideas. Oh, we started a book club and we read all these different things and then we presented it at the end. Just different ideas that maybe you can't think of and you can't see because you're in the trenches of it. When you have a bigger and bigger network that's committed to making sure that we're safe,
00:54:25
Speaker
You do better, so just look for those things when you're applying a residency applying in medicine and when you're going through it.
00:54:32
Speaker
You know, I love the different programs we have. I love YBad for some stuff on Facebook. I love to be able to be up there. And I have internet friends I have never met and probably will never meet. But like, I'm not going to tell her. And like, something will happen. I'll think about it. So that's helped me in a big way too, because we don't have a lot of Black doctors that are places. So using those forums for stuff and really committing to those relationships, showing up at SNMA events, going to those conferences, those things have definitely helped me
00:55:02
Speaker
in a way that I didn't see possible when I was probably at Kirchville and not a part of S&M yet. So that's it's been valuable. Absolutely.
00:55:13
Speaker
I think people will be inspired for a number of reasons after watching this. I mean, I think there is a good enough interest at the moment in psychiatry. I see a lot more. So hopefully this will continue to kind of push that forward. But if people have some questions or want to follow you on social media, I don't know if you do talks or if you have a moment where you give
00:55:42
Speaker
pearls for the day, it seems like you'd be given some good ones if you do. So can, is there somewhere they can follow you? Twitter, Instagram, wherever. My Instagram is, it's actually doctor because I'm rude.
00:55:58
Speaker
Because you know how we get seen and we're like, are you the nurse? Are you the social worker? I love that. So I, maybe, maybe I have a problem. Anyway, so my Instagram is, it's actually doctor. It's up there. It says Shari Moore, I believe. And I can also be reached if you guys want to put my like email address or something up there. I love to talk to students.
00:56:23
Speaker
I like mentorship. So if anyone needs to reach me, I will definitely I'll send you my information and my email address and stuff and I can be reached for sure. Awesome. Back to more. This has been great. I mean, I think I smiled like
00:56:38
Speaker
They're going to be looking like, she smiled the whole time. Yes, because I was just getting my life in this entire interview. So thank you for being here with us. Thank you for the work that you do in a space that I think is neglected. So continue doing the good work. Talking to little old me who just became an attending.
00:56:59
Speaker
We're excited for you. Psychiatry is a fantastic field and all of us are kind of chill and like casual like that probably because we were doing a lot you know and it's it's a nice it's a nice field and I think that it's super important for us to keep keep that up and keep making sure that we see physicians right that we're not only relying on mid-levels that we actually see physicians and we say what's the new drug that's on the market
00:57:23
Speaker
Should I be struggling with this? How can I do this? You know what, family history, let me go ask some questions. Because it's such a deep field that I think it gets lost in the sauce sometimes. And all of us are quite capable of doing all the things. So I'm glad to be a full physician, have delivered all the babies, have done all these things, and still decided that psychiatry is where I wanted to be. So. Super dope. Super dope. 100%. So thank you.
00:57:48
Speaker
Appreciate it. Thank you for being here with us. To our loungers, thank you guys for joining us for this episode of SNMA Presents the Lounge, our podcast live edition. And we will see you next month for our regular or regularly scheduled episode. Y'all take care.
00:58:15
Speaker
Bye!