Medical students in the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine are celebrating World Mental Health Day this October 10 by participating in a workshop on mental health literacy sponsored by Department of Community and Behavioral Health Professor Jae Kennedy, PhD.
Kennedy serves on the board of directors for Dragonfly Mental Health, an international nongovernmental organization that conducts independent research on mental health among academics and evaluates evidence-based interventions to reduce stigma and institutional barriers to care. The organization provides personalized consulting, training, workshops, and anti-stigma campaigns for departments, institutions, and associations.
Last year on World Mental Health Day, Dragonfly delivered dozens of free workshops in 27 cities across 25 countries, and plans to expand their efforts this year with the addition of a workshop at WSU in Spokane. The workshop will be led by Terra (Cody) Weston, MD, PhD, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan and congressional fellow for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
“There is a growing mental illness epidemic in higher education, where graduate students have eight times higher rates of severe depression and anxiety, far too often resulting in suicide,” said Dragonfly CEO and founder Wendy Ingram, PhD. “Our mission is to change the world as we know it, by supporting and sustaining incredible minds and talent ready to make the world a better place. The Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine is the first medical school we’ve worked with, but it won’t be the last. We’ve got to support the mental health of physicians and confront the pervasive stigma of mental health in American medicine.”