Latest / The Medical Mind / Breaking the Silence, Addressing Youth Suicide Ep. 5: IMG Caucus
Transcript
- 0:02We need to survivors as our allies.
- 0:05And also we need to accept that somewhere our own powerlessness.
- 0:11We are just doctors, not gods.
- 0:14We are providers of treatment.
- 0:16We can't save everybody.
- 0:18So we need to accept our humanness.
- 0:24Hello and welcome to the APA More Equity series, Breaking the Silence, Addressing Youth Suicide.
- 0:31In this episode, Dr.
- 0:32Raman Marwaha, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, is joined by Dr.
- 0:37Rama Rao Gogineni.
- 0:40Dr.
- 0:40Marwaha completed his medical degree in Delhi, India, followed by psychiatry training at Case Western and a fellowship at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
- 0:51He now serves as a training director and vice chair of education at Metro Health and is an associate professor.
- 0:58Dr.
- 0:58Marwaha also leads nationally as president of the American Psychiatric Association's Caucus of International Medical Graduate Psychiatrists and serves on several APA and
- 1:09AADPRT committees.
- 1:12His work focuses on community psychiatry, workforce development, and cultural mental health care.
- 1:18So now let's break the silence with Dr.
- 1:20Marwaha and Dr.
- 1:21Koginani.
- 1:24It is my pleasure to introduce uh Dr.
- 1:29Rama Rao Goganani, um who's a professor of psychiatry at Cooper Medical School of Robin University.
- 1:37uh He's trained in psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, family therapy, and psychoanalysis.
- 1:44He's an active contributing member of APA, ACAP, American Association for Social Psychiatry.
- 1:52and World Association for Social Psychiatry.
- 1:56He's had a presence both at national, regional, and international levels as well.
- 2:02He's a contributing member of GAP since 2007 and was chair of the Global and the IMG Committee, member of the Culture Committee, and is currently chair of the Family Committee
- 2:14and also president of the Association of Family Psychiatrists.
- 2:18To his credit, he has more than 50 publications.
- 2:22200 plus presentations and editor or co-editor of multiple books, including the WASP textbook on social psychiatry, besides family extending the orbit of psychic development,
- 2:35fatherhood scenarios development, culture, psychopathology and treatment, Eastern religion, spirituality and psychiatry, and the glow of synthesis, 12 beacons of light in
- 2:46social psychiatry.
- 2:48So Dr.
- 2:49Kovunani, to begin with,
- 2:52Can you share what drew you to focus your career on child psychiatry um and suicide prevention, particularly among youth?
- 3:03Sure.
- 3:05kind of, my focus on many issues was influenced by what I was doing, what I'm doing, what's happening around me.
- 3:16I was trained at the University of Pennsylvania in adult psychiatry.
- 3:20I started working there as a faculty in 1979 ah as the assistant director of the consultation liaison and emergency psychiatry.
- 3:34I had this neurotic realization I have to learn about growing up in America to treat adults.
- 3:44So I was talking to Jean Hiltz, uh who is doing a fellowship at CHOP.
- 3:52She advised me, why don't you go and talk to Jim Goldstein at Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute and do a rotation in child psychiatry and you will learn.
- 4:03about growing up in America.
- 4:06So I went and talked to Dr.
- 4:07Goldstein.
- 4:08He made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
- 4:11That is, Rao, you're so good.
- 4:12You can come and spend a little bit of time, six months, or half time.
- 4:18I'll give you half time credit.
- 4:20Or if you want, you can finish half time four years.
- 4:23Or you can come on full time after July and finish your child fellowship.
- 4:29So that's how I started my child fellowship.
- 4:32And then of course I fell in love with child psychiatry.
- 4:37Then I decided to learn about family psychiatry because of my association with a Jewish South African immigrant physician named Dr.
- 4:50Judith Landau.
- 4:52So because of her influence, I learned to learn about families and psychiatry.
- 4:57I did end up doing fellow God Masters in Family Therapy.
- 5:03I have an MFT degree.
- 5:06Then I became neurotic and neurotic patients developed what I call borderline ambivalent transference towards me.
- 5:14I could get rid of them, I could treat them.
- 5:18to master treating them, I finished my psychonaut training.
- 5:24So you got it?
- 5:28My growth is purely neurotic.
- 5:31And thank you for sharing that.
- 5:33um you have uh an MFT as well.
- 5:37uh And thank you for sharing about how you came to the US and started your training and your influences.
- 5:48And as someone who's trained in India and transitioned into the US medical academic system, how has your cultural background influenced your perspective on
- 5:59mental health, especially within immigrant communities.
- 6:04I don't know.
- 6:05One is, I guess maybe, I never thought about cultural background, but I can tell you, being a multi-diverse coming from India, which is not even though one country, but we have
- 6:19different cultures, different skin colors, different backgrounds.
- 6:25India has an interesting history, 3,000 years of what's happening in America, as somebody said.
- 6:33India was a mixed solid, a tossed solid, and America is a transforming mixed solid.
- 6:44In some way, what America is today, India was, maybe a thousand years ago, maybe 800 years ago.
- 6:52Maybe even 1947, until 1947.
- 6:55If you look at Indian history, natives, Dravidians, Aryans, Persians,
- 7:03um Afghans, Mongols, Turks, all Europeans.
- 7:11India is a mixed up race.
- 7:14So I think most of us are somehow used to accepting, not only accepting, taking pride in diversity.
- 7:25And my father is uh a role model.
- 7:27He has wonderful acceptance capacity.
- 7:32And actually I have to tell you interesting, my father's nickname is Boy Jesus, even though he's a Hindu, because he was very kind to Christian poor.
- 7:44So now we know where you get your genetics from and you're talking about your role model with your father as well.
- 7:56And uh I know we're here today to talk about the rising suicide.
- 8:04It's the second leading cause of death for youth in ages between 10 and 24.
- 8:11And in your kind of opinion, your experience, what factors you think have kind of contributed to this over the past few decades, particularly among em immigrant youth?
- 8:25you don't mind, I'm going to tell a little bit about the history of uh adolescent suicide in psychiatry and social sciences.
- 8:34The first person that highlighted suicide is Emile Durkheim.
- 8:40He's sociologist, a physician, mostly spent time in France, but he was born in Eastern Europe first.
- 8:50He has written monographs about suicide.
- 8:55According to his theory, there are four different kinds of suicide.
- 8:58I'm not going to bore you with that today.
- 8:59I think people should read a little about about Emil Darkheim for people who are interested in suicide.
- 9:06Definitely.
- 9:07It's my eye-opening experience for me when I first read his stuff.
- 9:12So the next is the second uh interesting 19th century, early 19th century, Goyath classic, The Sorrow of Young Werther.
- 9:24It's a novel that was a famous book on suicide that became very popular during his days.
- 9:34The third is interesting.
- 9:35I read this monograph.
- 9:39In 1910, uh Vienna, there was a conference about adolescent suicide.
- 9:48Guess who attended and gave lectures?
- 9:50Sigmund Freud, Frederick,
- 9:54Freud, Rank, Steckel, and Tusk, and August Aijhorn.
- 10:00He's the one who organized the meetings.
- 10:02uh Freud's introduction to the series is the following sentence.
- 10:10He doesn't understand why the life drive, which is the strongest drive in humans and animals, takes a backseat in teenagers, and they subject themselves to suicide.
- 10:24I still question that though.
- 10:26We don't have a good answer.
- 10:28There are all kinds of answers.
- 10:29Biology, but still what Freud said in 1910, the strongest life drive, why he takes a back seat in teenagers.
- 10:40That's a question.
- 10:43That's why it rose in 1910.
- 10:47By the way, people who are interested, there is a chapter in a Lewis book written by
- 10:54cynthia faffer she's a nationally known suicide expert it's a totally eight-page temple
- 11:02I was just going to say, wow, all the history that you're sharing.
- 11:07Just to know about the depth of how this is being discussed and looked into with all these icons we know in second.
- 11:18It of gives a little narrative, different kind of narrative, instead of just saying it is it.
- 11:25That's, and I know you mentioned that.
- 11:28So there was this question that Freud had that when an adolescence um she said comes.
- 11:36So what do you think?
- 11:39Well, what they discussed in the conference is causality is what we are talking about today.
- 11:46Availability of the guns, changing population, age gap, changing adolescents.
- 11:55Everything we're talking about, that's what they wrote in 1910 monograph.
- 11:59So they're still right.
- 12:01Well, um yeah, all the experience.
- 12:07I mean, apart from these factors in your experience, do you think there are other unique kind of cultural or systemic or socioeconomic pressures that put immigrant youth at a
- 12:19greater risk for suicide?
- 12:22Absolutely.
- 12:23uh Just going back to what's interesting though, in America still white youth are the highest risk.
- 12:32And not blacks, not Latinos.
- 12:35But the rate of suicidality is increasing in African Americans more than white.
- 12:42uh Second generation immigrant youth are highest risk now.
- 12:49Not the first generation.
- 12:51First generation actually suicide risk is much less.
- 12:55Second generation is much higher.
- 12:58Then homeless LGBTQ are the highest risk for suicide.
- 13:05Almost half of them die, kill themselves or die.
- 13:09Both homicide and suicide.
- 13:12They're victims.
- 13:14A homeless LGBTQ tribe.
- 13:18And boys are more than girls.
- 13:22I think sociology is definitely a factor.
- 13:25And second generation is higher than first generation.
- 13:28uh And also Asian and Pacific Islanders are highest risk even in immigrant population.
- 13:37And Latinos, first, second generation.
- 13:41First, Latinos in suicide route continue to grow each generation.
- 13:48Second generation higher than first, third generation is higher than second generation.
- 13:54So that's an interesting kind of uh fact that you mentioned that, you know, with generations, second generation has a higher risk in immigrants, uh even third higher.
- 14:05do you, I can you talk about like how maybe intergenerational or immigration-related trauma might play a role in kind of some vulnerabilities among immigrant families?
- 14:19Sure.
- 14:20The Purnima Mehta was a child psychiatrist from Ann Arbor.
- 14:26She has written, I think in 1970 or something, she hypothesized it is the second generation acculturation aspects that might have contributed to her suicide.
- 14:41And that still holds true.
- 14:43That is second generation, third generation.
- 14:47Whenever they have a lot more conflicts with their cultural identity, racial identity, particularly if they felt a discrimination, stigma, or a grunt to school problems, other
- 15:05psychosocial determinants, if they contribute, the combination of those two.
- 15:12I think that's one reason why they have highest risk.
- 15:17Okay, that's interesting.
- 15:19So thank you for sharing that.
- 15:20um Do you also think, I mean, there's often a stigma around mental health.
- 15:26I mean, overall there's a stigma and then especially in immigrant households, there's more of a stigma.
- 15:33Does that also impact kind of detection, treatment of mental health issues?
- 15:40Well, I don't know, though, but stigma definitely prevents getting help.
- 15:45Whether there is more stigma about suicide in Indian Hindus, probably not.
- 15:53Christians also have high stigma.
- 15:56Some groups more than others.
- 15:59And still the Caucasian whites are the highest suicide risk.
- 16:05So we think it is a race I don't know, though.
- 16:08Maybe it is.
- 16:10you
- 16:11Okay, yeah.
- 16:13And what about um like barriers, like language barriers or lack of insurance or uh immigration status?
- 16:22um Does that also maybe play a role in kind of um immigrants getting access to mental health care?
- 16:34But again, the suicide rate is not high in the first generation though.
- 16:39So you would think it would be highest in the, if they are the factors.
- 16:45That's why combining with the acculturation conflicts, plus those, what you see, you need both.
- 16:55Bicultural identity.
- 16:59And also looks like acculturation and those conflicts uh are playing kind of a role in the second generation or even the follow through generation, especially with kind of youth
- 17:11suicide as well.
- 17:14What do you wish more mental health professionals understood about kind of approaching care for immigrant youth and their families?
- 17:27I don't know there, I'll tell you what I do though.
- 17:30There is so much so-called evidence-based medicine sometimes instead of expanding our knowledge, put us in boxes.
- 17:41They're necessary though.
- 17:44I think we need to create our own box with what's already in the literature.
- 17:50If we have anxiety about talking about suicide, we need to acknowledge it.
- 17:57And by the way, one of the things we don't talk about, even with suicidal patients, how do they feel about dying, not suicide?
- 18:07We really talk about death, death wish.
- 18:11When did they start talking about dying, not suicide?
- 18:16So I think it's an extension of wish to die, wish to...
- 18:23Rejoin universe, God?
- 18:25We don't know.
- 18:27When you just pathologize it, the patrons feel judged.
- 18:34It's almost like treating offenders.
- 18:38If you just talk to offenders as if it's a bad behavior, they're not going to talk to you.
- 18:46If you see it as a psychopathology-based, psychodynamic, cognitive aspects, culturally-based phenomena, they'll open up to you.
- 18:59You see, I'm not saying that, but if you give them the message, you'll claim of it.
- 19:04And if you talk to traumatized women from Sub-Saharan Africa, they don't see themselves as trauma victims.
- 19:12They see themselves as survivors.
- 19:14um And I think that's a great point that you kind of um see, you bringing that psychodynamic perspective as well.
- 19:22And I love that thing you said, create your own box um and the importance of kind of acknowledging, um which is kind of like crucial.
- 19:32And do you think there's a role for kind of like community organizations or faith or culturally specific resources to kind of help with
- 19:45kind of the connection for immigrant youth or their resilience, fostering their resilience.
- 19:51I'm going to come back to you a little bit one more minute.
- 19:54I want to tell Baiba what's in my box.
- 19:57My closest friend at the age of seven or six drowned, died.
- 20:07that created a set of feelings about losing friends' death.
- 20:15I wondered afterwards, did he kill himself?
- 20:17I don't think so.
- 20:18But I took hurt him.
- 20:20I don't know where I got that in my head, did he kill himself?
- 20:24I know he didn't, he drowned.
- 20:26But the question is, on the second is, I have family suicide.
- 20:31said, a couple of, one suicide.
- 20:34So how much these play a role in my treating, empathizing, or running away from it?
- 20:42So our box is us also, our family, our culture.
- 20:50If you come from a culture where suicide is a sin, can you take tackle?
- 20:58Or what are you going do about that in the box where it's suicide is a sin?
- 21:05Yeah, and that must have had a big impact on you, as you uh mentioned, and how you created your own box as well.
- 21:18created but also accepted.
- 21:20It helps me.
- 21:21Oh God, things happen.
- 21:23My job is not to judge.
- 21:26Be helpful.
- 21:29Okay, I love that.
- 21:30um Job is not to judge, but to be helpful.
- 21:35Now, I know that again, just kind of going back to that, do you think there's like with community, with culturally specific resources, how can that help with our faith, with
- 21:49resilience or connection for our immigrant youth?
- 21:54I think this is where the NAMI, ah American Association of Suicide Prevention, our organizations, APA, child psychiatry, there's so many oh support groups out there.
- 22:13I think we need to use them.
- 22:15We need to use survivors as our allies.
- 22:19And also we need to accept that somewhere.
- 22:22our own powerlessness.
- 22:24We are just doctors, not gods.
- 22:29We are providers of treatment.
- 22:32If cancer patient doesn't get better, it's not our fault.
- 22:38We can't save everybody, so we need to accept our humanness.
- 22:44We are doctors.
- 22:45That's all we are.
- 22:49And um talking uh about survivors as our allies and experiences, without reaching any confidentiality, do you have a story or a case that illustrates or talks about challenges
- 23:09or maybe successes in working that you've had with at-risk immigrant youth?
- 23:18I'll say a famous quote by one of my teachers, Bob Sadoff.
- 23:23He was a forensic psychiatrist, one of the best in America.
- 23:28He said years ago, the following, this is quote, I'd rather meet somebody in the court than meet them in the graveyard.
- 23:39Don't worry about getting sued.
- 23:43Worry about saving lives.
- 23:46I'm not saying we should not, we should be careful.
- 23:51But our goal is don't avoid, don't do anything, just avoid court.
- 23:57Our job is to save lives.
- 24:00If you think about it, I think you do the right thing.
- 24:05You don't go to court.
- 24:08Our mission is not to protect ourselves from getting sued.
- 24:13Our mission is save lives, protect.
- 24:16enhance functionality of our patients.
- 24:24By the way, if this is your mission, nobody's going to sue you.
- 24:28you
- 24:31Yeah, which is, which is, think, again, again, so important um to self-reflect and kind of think about that, that, you know, this is the mission again.
- 24:42How do we kind of like help our patients um and kind of do what we're kind of, you know, best kind of trained to do um as well.
- 24:52And I know you've had so much experience.
- 24:56If you wanted to share kind of any case or any experience that you had,
- 25:01um, feel feel like again, share.
- 25:05Well, I think I already said my friend, I thought that's an interesting, my closest friend.
- 25:10And uh
- 25:17Actually, just came to my mind.
- 25:20One of my professors in medical school, he was on black pressure medicine, the serpilin.
- 25:26He suicided.
- 25:28And there's a side effect of the medication.
- 25:34I still, I can't forget that.
- 25:39He's a wonderful man, but he's a side effect of medication.
- 25:42He kill himself.
- 25:45What else?
- 25:46The other thing, this is a slightly different.
- 25:50I treated a wonderful young lady in a hospital setting years ago.
- 25:57I had a very good relationship, but she didn't get better from depression or suicide.
- 26:04We send her to a long-term facility.
- 26:08But six months afterwards, she wrote me a letter, Doctor, you are the best doctor I ever had.
- 26:15And then I appreciated, felt good.
- 26:20And then I found out a month later she successfully killed herself.
- 26:25I can't forget her.
- 26:29I could see her face.
- 26:32Beautiful, innocent.
- 26:37ah But that's the only
- 26:41Mm-hmm.
- 26:42patient that I experienced in my life, in my time.
- 26:48So thank you for sharing these cases.
- 26:53And I'm sure they were kind of, they've all kind of, know, cases that have kind of happened, like you've already formed your box and you keep on kind of oh evolving your box
- 27:04as well.
- 27:05um So um I know that, um you know, you've mentored, um
- 27:13international medical graduates, so many of us and so many young psychiatrists for over, again, decades.
- 27:21uh I mean, I am amongst one of them.
- 27:23uh What guidance do you offer them when it comes to kind of working with diverse, at-risk youth population?
- 27:34Well, first thing is we need to evaluate ourselves.
- 27:39But we're all prejudiced, judgmental.
- 27:42That's part of human behavior, loving yourself, loving what you got, skin color, your looks.
- 27:52We have to self-evaluate.
- 27:54Second is uh just evaluate what your thoughts are, feelings are about suicide, death.
- 28:01The other world we go to after that are now no no other world.
- 28:07And think about that death talks about death, not just suicide.
- 28:13And the family is the survivors of suicide.
- 28:17Yeah, the American Association of their wonderful both NAMI and if we can get involved, help them.
- 28:23That would be wonderful.
- 28:26Can you hear me?
- 28:27Yes.
- 28:31And uh if it happens, meet the family, console them, help them if they're But again, luckily, I never had suicide in my practice, thank God.
- 28:50But it happens to all of us.
- 28:53We are not gods.
- 28:55Yeah.
- 28:58And thank you for sharing that.
- 29:00Now, you know, looking back at your journey, I mean, from India to Cooper, national leadership, what have been some of like the most meaningful kind of moments or lessons in
- 29:15your career so far?
- 29:19ah Well, I think there's so many.
- 29:22The first thing is I ah
- 29:28I felt so loved, accepted by my training director and my colleagues.
- 29:38Two examples come to the, Jeff Greenbaum was my colleague in a past year residency.
- 29:45I was sleeping on the floor and then he came to my floor of my room, my bed, and they said, why are you sleeping there without no bed?
- 29:55So he drove me.
- 29:57to a used furniture store, bought a bed, brought it to my house.
- 30:06I didn't bother sleeping on the floor, that I'm used to it.
- 30:12And then he invited me to the Passover meal at his home in Long Island, Hewlett, Long Island.
- 30:20I still have memories of enjoying that Jewish meal, not a great taste though.
- 30:29family and just I still have so much great feelings that that continued.
- 30:37Alberto Rich was my uh chief resident.
- 30:40was a Mexican Jewish guy.
- 30:42took care of me.
- 30:44Somehow like you guys, all of you take care of me as an old man.
- 30:52and how you take care of all of us.
- 30:54So I think that that power of acceptance is uh and kind of helping is so, uh again, I mean, those things are so powerful.
- 31:03And, you when we're talking about kind of just the, again, the kind of gravity of kind of youth suicide crisis, like what gives you hope?
- 31:15Well, I'm going to give a philosophical answer though.
- 31:18What gives me hope is pretty simple, but not just about suicide, about anything.
- 31:24That is, what Darwin said, propagation of species and survival of the species are the driving force of all animals in our life.
- 31:36Doctor, sorry, could you repeat that?
- 31:38There's like a phone ringing.
- 31:41I know there's something, some alarm going off in my hospital.
- 31:46I have that.
- 31:47But I am on headphones.
- 31:53I don't know what that is.
- 31:56Yeah, maybe give it a minute just because it's gonna come.
- 31:59uh I'll mute out if it's coming from me.
- 32:05That's it stopped.
- 32:07Okay, sorry.
- 32:07So you were saying what gives you hope if you could just repeat your answer.
- 32:11The scientific answer though, is a propagation of species, what Darwin said and what Freud repeated in his drive theory, that is propagation of species and survival of species are
- 32:28the characteristics of life, not just humans.
- 32:33Since the evolution of life on the earth, some millennia years ago, that's what's happening.
- 32:41So it's going to continue to happen.
- 32:44Same thing about what Freud said, the same thing.
- 32:47The aggression drive is survival of species and sex drive is propagation of species.
- 32:54People mistake those two things as if he's talking about sex, he's not.
- 32:59He's really talking about propagation of species.
- 33:03That's what gives me hope.
- 33:05The second is what last year, our lecture, IMG lecture,
- 33:10Gratitude.
- 33:11We are all born with gratitude, not because we are any better.
- 33:16It is a trait we all need to transmit goodness, life, good to our future generations.
- 33:26It's biological, we're all biologically programmed to pass on goodness, life, greatness to our future generations.
- 33:37Yeah, some...
- 33:38There are change his cons.
- 33:41There is a bad people come and go.
- 33:45But overall, for the last 40,000 years, since Cro-Magnum came into the universe, we continue to grow and grow and grow, becoming better, less aggressive.
- 33:58We're not killing each other as we used to.
- 34:02That's what gives me hope.
- 34:03There's a scientific answer, though.
- 34:06You always can find something wrong.
- 34:09That's my dot really an answer to your question.
- 34:13You know, thank you for kind of talking about that.
- 34:16you know, lastly, for our listeners, whether they're clinicians, community workers, or uh parents, what's one thing you want them to walk away with from today's conversation?
- 34:33uh You know, I'll repeat what I said though.
- 34:38I feel fortunate.
- 34:42Life is good to me.
- 34:43Life is good to most of us.
- 34:47Yeah, there are some similar, some back, some psychosocial determinants, some pathology.
- 34:58Positive psychiatry, positive psychology, positive behaviors have been the source of our goodness, of our past and our future.
- 35:10ah I don't know.
- 35:14That's my view and that's what I see.
- 35:16uh That's what helped me.
- 35:19Whether it's my friends that helped me to come to America.
- 35:25my family that gave me life and wonderfulness, and my training programs that gave me good education and love and affection and opportunities to grow.
- 35:37That's what I see mostly.
- 35:41Thank you, Dr.
- 35:43Goganani.
- 35:44I a lot of gratitude to you to having this conversation today.
- 35:48I appreciate all your time.
- 35:51Thank you.
- 35:54Thank you for joining us on Breaking the Silence, Addressing Youth Suicide.
- 35:58Please visit the Medical Minds podcast homepage at psychiatry.org for more information and a resource document related to this episode.
- 36:06We also invite you to visit psychiatry.org slash more equity, M-O-O-R-E-E-Q-U-I-T-Y for more information on the APA More Equity in Mental Health Initiative.
- 36:19Take care.
- 36:23The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the individual speakers only and do not necessarily represent the views of the American Psychiatric Association.
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