Cultivating mental health education in obstetrics and gynecology: a call to action.

Mental health disorders are common and have a significantly negative impact on the health and well-being of women. For example, perinatal mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression are widely understood to be the most common complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Untreated mental health disorders are associated with significant obstetrical and psychiatric sequelae and have a long-lasting impact on neonatal and childhood outcomes. As front-line providers for women during times of elevated risk of psychiatric morbidity, such as pregnancy and postpartum, obstetricians and gynecologists are compelled to have familiarity with such disorders. Yet, a wide gap exists between the level of education in mental health disorders that obstetrician and gynecologist providers receive and the clinical need thereof. The objectives of this commentary are to describe the urgent need for mental health education for obstetricians and gynecologists providers and to introduce our vision for a concise, evidence-based and accessible set of digital educational materials designed to convey core concepts in women's reproductive mental health.

Reducing medical students' stigmatization of people with chronic mental illness: a field intervention at the "living museum" state hospital art studio.

OBJECTIVE: The authors designed an intervention to reduce beginning medical students' stigmatization of people with chronic mental illness (CMI). METHODS: Pre-clinical medical students visited a state psychiatric facility's "Living Museum," a combination patient art studio/display space, as the intervention. During the visit, students interacted with artist-guides who showed their work and discussed their experiences creating art. Students completed a self-assessment survey developed to measure attitudes and feelings toward people with CMI after half of the class visited the Living Museum, constituting a Visit/No-Visit cross-sectional comparison. RESULTS: Students who visited the Living Museum (N=64), as compared with those who did not visit (N=110), endorsed more positive attitudes toward people with CMI. Among the students who visited, however, those who reported having spoken individually with a patient-artist (N=44), paradoxically, indicated less-positive feelings toward people with CMI. CONCLUSIONS: An intervention in which pre-clinical medical students visited patient-artist guides in an art-studio setting generally improved students' attitudes toward people with CMI. Thus, nontraditional psychiatric settings offer a valuable adjunct to more traditional clinical settings to reduce stigma when introducing medical students to the field of psychiatry.