Now, a conversation about how the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening not only our physical and financial well-being, but also our mental health.
Across the nation, tens of millions of people in all walks of life - from front-line hospital staff and shuttered small business owners to unemployed restaurant workers and parents staying home with their kids — are reporting increased levels of psychological stress about the COVID-19 illness and the threat it poses to them, their loved ones, and their livelihoods.
The impact of this heightened stress is indisputable. What kinds of services are available during the pandemic to help people cope with psychological trauma?
Tom's guest is Dr. Harsh Trivedi. He’s is the President and CEO of the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore, one of the nation’s largest private, non-profit providers of mental health, substance use and other special-needs services. He is also a professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Dr. Trivedi joins Tom via Skype phone to describe the scope of the current mental health crisis, and the range of services available to those in need. Those services include Sheppard Pratt's new Virtual Walk-In Mental Health Clinic, and, to mark Mental Health Awareness Month this May, its weekly online "Lunch and Learn"expert seminars on ways to manage our mental health.
