Spread the light with Dr Devika B
Welcome! We feature first-person accounts of living with mental illness that aim to dispel stigma and stereotypes and instead, spread hope and light. Because stigma festers in the dark and scatters in the light. ||| I'm your host, Dr Devika Bhushan, a pediatrician, public health leader, and equity and health changemaker. In 2022, I served as the Acting Surgeon General for California. I also have lived experience as a woman of color, a parent, a person with bipolar disorder, and an Indian-American immigrant to the US by way of the Philippines. ||| Join our transformative well-being newsletter community — with written versions of interviews like this, along with deep dives into evidence-based trends in health, innovation, and culture: www.askdrdevikab.substack.com/about and watch video versions of our conversations here: www.youtube.com/@drdevikab
Episodes
18 episodes
Dr Nzinga Harrison's groundbreaking approach to treating addiction
Nzinga Harrison, MD, is a board-certified physician with specialties in psychiatry and addiction medicine. She is also the Chief Medical Officer and cofounder of Eleanor Health, an innovative mental health and addiction treatment company...
Pooja Mehta on mental illness advocacy as a South Asian American woman
Pooja Mehta serves with me on the National Board of Directors at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). She’s been a powerful mental health advocate since she was 19 and lives with anxiety with auditory hallucinations, depressio...
Ashanti Branch on redefining healthy masculinity
Ashanti Branch has over 20 years of experience in building healthy relationships in schools — he’s a pioneer in reforming education, youth mental health, and traditional masculinity. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the
Corey Feist, Dr Mona Masood, Janae Sharp on health worker well-being
This month, in honor of the newly named Health Workforce Well-Being Day on March 18th, commemorating the day the President signed the Lorna Breen Act into law in 2022, I’m thrilled to feature conversations with three brilliant national leaders ...
Dr Jessi Gold on optimizing well-being
I loved this awesome conversation on optimizing well-being with my friend, Dr Jessi Gold. She is now the first Chief Wellness Officer for the University of Tennessee System, though this was recorded before that — and a psychiatrist with experti...
Dr Crystal Clark and Dr Nancy Byatt on the hidden costs of breastfeeding
Welcome to Season 2 of Spread the light with Dr Devika B. Here, we know that stigma festers in the dark and it scatters in the light. And this season will take that even further. We’ll dive into the ways that stigma shows up in culture...
Amy Brinkley’s journey with substance use disorder and mental illness
This episode features Amy Brinkley’s incredible journey — and how she uses her personal experiences with substance use and mental illness recovery to drive national change and sup...
Lara Burmeister's journey with depression
Lara Burmeister, MBA, is a first-generation German-American who has spent most of her career working in roles to combat climate change. She lives with depression.Hear about what Lara challenged herself to do to get through her darkest m...
Dr Ade Osinubi's journey with hopelessness in medicine
Dr Ade Osinubi is a resident physician in emergency medicine, a documentary filmmaker, and photographer whose work focuses on telling the untold stories of minority populations. She recently created the documentary Black Motherhood Through the ...
Dr Justin Bullock's journey with suicidality and depression in medicine
Justin Bullock, MD, MPH, is a fellow in Nephrology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr Bullock is a passionate medical educator and an identity safety researcher. He is outspoken about his lived experience as a gay, Black, bi...
Dr Jake Goodman's journey with anxiety and depression in medicine
Dr Jake Goodman is a psychiatry resident physician and global mental health activist with more than 2.1 million followers on social media. He is a two-time TEDx Speaker, member of the University of Georgia Alumni Association's 40 under 40, and ...
Dr Ahmed Hankir's journey with melancholia and elation in medicine
Dr Ahmed Hankir is a Lebanese-British-Irish psychiatrist with expertise by lived experience. He serves as the Lead for Public Engagement and Education at the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Mental Health and Human Right...
Geo Custodio’s journey as a non-binary transfemme person
Geo Custodio is a creative strategist, using both left and right brain thinking to help brands and corporations define their values and to build community. She has worked in tech, fashion, publishing and is currently a communications consultant...
Andy Dunn's journey with bipolar I disorder
Andy Dunn is an entrepreneur, author (of his memoir, Burn Rate), investor, and father. He co-founded the men's wear brand Bonobos and recently released his TED talk, Lessons from losing my mind: https://www.ted.com/talks/andy_dunn_lessons_from_...
Emi Nietfeld’s journey with foster care and PTSD
Emi Nietfeld is a journalist, mental health activist, and the author of Acceptance: A Memoir, a journey from foster care and homelessness to Har...
Busting some common bipolar myths on World Bipolar Day
This year, in honor of World Bipolar Day, I got some friends together to bust some commonly held myths about bipolar disorder. Here are our truths:Myself, Dr Devika Bhushan, a pediatrician, public health leader, and equity ...
Brandon Staglin's journey with schizophrenia
Brandon Staglin is President of One Mind, where he channels his deep experience in communications, advocacy, and his personal recovery from schizophrenia to drive brain health research, services, and media.Trigger warning: this episode ...
Andrew Barr's journey with OCD
Andrew Barr is a founding partner of GreyMatter, a mental health-focused venture capital firm. Previously, he advised a range of mental health startups and non-profits. Before his work in the mental field, he was a co-founder of Prefer, a Bench...