Koko Urata

Kimiko “Koko” Urata, MD, MS, was a member of the inaugural psychiatry residency class at University of Washington, Montana Track, located in Billings, Montana. Her interests lie in rural underserved mental health, team-based care, and education.  

Growing up in Southeast Alaska, she developed a passion for community, team-based care, and rural mental health. She received her medical degree at University of Washington, Alaska WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho). She was selected for the WWAMI Rural Integrated Training Experience in Alaska and her interest in rural mental health began. During medical school, she earned the University of Washington School of Medicine Service Award based on her dedication to community service and the Underserved Pathway Certificate for her commitment in caring for underserved and vulnerable populations. 

Dr. Urata was drawn to integrated care during residency due to the interdisciplinary, team-based approach to improve access to mental health care. She hopes to build upon her knowledge of psychiatry and gain expertise in quality improvement, systems of care, and population-based medicine. Clinically, she also has interests in perinatal care, psychotherapy, and palliative care. She is excited to be a part of the Population Mental Health and Integrated Care Fellowship and aims to expand access to mental health to rural and underserved communities in Alaska.  

Matthew Gunther, MD, MA

Dr. Matthew Gunther joined the faculty as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine in July 2023. He completed his residency training at the University of Southern California and a Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Fellowship at Stanford University. His interests in psychiatry include critical care, integrated care, neuropsychiatry, medical education, and psychopharmacology. Dr. Gunther works in the Integrated Behavioral Health program, with particular focus on resident-based primary care clinics. In addition, he is an attending on the Critical Care and Inpatient Consult-Liaison Psychiatry services. 

Dr. Gunther became interested in integrated care during residency and is excited to continue this work as an attending physician. He is particularly interested in improving access to psychiatric services for patients with limited resources and providing education to non-psychiatric providers on how to provide effective mental health treatment. He hopes to gain knowledge and expertise in effectively growing and managing an integrated care program, as well as further hone educational skills in teaching the integrated care models to trainees of all disciplines.

Through this program, Dr. Gunther hopes to effectively deliver and expand the services currently offered at Stanford to meet the needs of our growing population beyond the primary care clinics. Additionally, he plans to utilize this knowledge to train others in the integrated care model with a focus on sustainability and expansion. In the future, Dr. Gunther hopes integrated care becomes the new “standard of care” for mental health treatment, especially those with limited access to specialized psychiatric services.

YunYun Lu, MSN, ARNP, RN, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC

YunYun Lu is a dual-certifiedFNP and PMHNP, currently working as a PMHNP atWashington Corrections Center For Women. Her daily panel includes initial psychiatric assessments for the new inmates, consultations with primary care providers, and medication adjustment appointments. Most of her patients have dual diagnoses with a history of substance use and major mental illnesses, which are common reasons for them to be incarcerated. She also has perinatal patients who came in with pregnancy status, and after their babies were born, some of them get to keep the baby in our mother-baby unit and raise them. In addition, she is proud that to provide gender-affirming mental health treatment for over 100 transgender patients in WCCW as well. The opportunity to work with those complex, treatment-resistant patientschallenges her skills and knowledge every day, but it is also very satisfying whenthey have an improvement in symptom relief and function better in their lives, work, and academics.

Jessica Gonzales, ARNP

Jessica Gonzales is a PMHNP currently working in a private practice setting, in a telehealth setting since the beginning of the pandemic, mostly doing medication management, and diagnosing.

Marlene Bergman, PMHNP-BC

Marlene Bergman worked as a midwife for many years before she transitioned to psychiatry/mental health. She started out working in addiction medicine and then transitioned to women’s mental health. She worked with a variety of people who identify as female with many different mental health disorders from the ages of 15 to 92.

Marlene’s interest in collaborative/integrated care began when she was working as a midwife. She desperately wanted Collaborative Care when patients needed to transfer to a higher level of care than she could provide. The transition was not always easy for them, and she felt that if we were able to work collaboratively then the transition would be a lot easier not only for the patient, but also for the doctor. Now that she is a provider, she feels collaboration between mental health and internal medicine can help us to provide even better person-centered care than individually.

Her participation in this program will help to develop better communication and skills for all to feel more comfortable working together, sharing ideas and providing better care.

She would like to see Collaborative Care/integrated care in all UW clinics. More providers working together and using their specialties to encompass the whole patient, not just certain parts of them at a time.

Chipepo Mugala, PA-C

Chipepo Mugala is a graduate of UW Medex Physician Assistant Program 2015. She has spent the last 7 years splitting her time between her two passions, acute care medicine in Urgent Care Settings and Behavioral Medicine. Since 2017, Chipepo has been serving as a psychiatric prescriber in SOUND’s Community Network Program (CNP) serving individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (ID and DD) living in King County. SOUND is a nonprofit community mental health provider serving individuals with mental and substance use disorders. She was recruited to SOUND’s CNP program by her mentor, Dale Sanderson PA-C recently retired psychiatric prescriber from CNP program, whom she met when she was a medical case manager working with ID clients supported by Alpha Supported living Services, a community based supported living agency for IDD clients.