Location: Maastricht, The Netherlands
Status: Assistant Professor (M.D. Internal Medicine) and PhD candidate (Creating Value in Care, Care and Public Health Research Institute), Maastricht University
Why do you think mental health in academia is important? As an academic physician, I’ve encountered reduced mental health among peers in medicine and/or research, both as a colleague/co-worker and also as patients. For such brilliant, high-functioning people to be so vulnerable to and stigmatized for being mentally unwell and even suicidal is heartbreaking. My expertise is in physician suicide, but I believe that many of the principles are similar across professions, countries, and cultures: normalizing mental health dialogue, reducing barriers to help-seeking, implementing evidence-based prevention in acute, chronic, and crisis situations, and standardizing postvention as a method of prevention. Analogous to the collaborative ideals of science, I believe that by working across disciplines to educate, engage, and empower our academic communities and beyond, we are advocating for our own mental health and that of countless others.