Christopher Ajadi’s journey in mental healthcare spans over 30years through continents and cultures. He is filled with gratitude for the diverse experiences that have shaped him into who he is today. Originally from Nigeria, his nursing career has taken him on a transformative path through the Republic of Ireland, England, and finally to the United States in 2007 and to South Korea through the US army. These global encounters have instilled in him a deep appreciation for the universal language of compassion and care, inspiring him to seek continuous growth and advancement in mental health.

Christopher’s educational journey has been marked by a relentless pursuit of knowledge and excellence. Starting from Nigeria and a post-master’s degree in psychiatric/mental health nursing at Maryville University, a pivotal step that propelled him towards his goal of becoming a proficient mental health nurse practitioner.

Through each educational milestone, he honed his clinical skills, deepened his theoretical understanding, and nurtured a passion for holistic patient care. His academic experiences have not only equipped him with the necessary tools to address the complex challenges of mental health but have also inspired him with a sense of purpose to advocate for vulnerable populations and promote mental wellness in all healthcare settings.

He is greatly excited and proud to be part of the fellowship program of the University of Washington in community-based integrated care to expand his skills, knowledge and understanding in a more holistic approach to healthcare, focusing on the intersection of mental health and community-based services. It is with great enthusiasm and determination to work alongside other healthcare professionals to achieve this dream.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sasha Ericksen, MD, is a psychiatrist at MultiCare Behavioral Health in Tacoma, Washington, and Clinical Faculty at Tacoma Family Medicine Residency program and East Pierce Addiction Medicine Fellowship program. She has an outpatient psychiatry practice, and teaches psychiatry and provides supervision to trainees. She has been co-located with primary care for 4 years. She has previously worked in tribal health, private practice, and group practice.   

Dr. Ericksen became interested in Collaborative Care due to the pressures of working in mental health in a rural community, and the promise of collaborating across health disciplines. She recently received a grant to start a pilot collaborative care program at the residency, focusing on an urban underserved community with high rates of addiction. She hopes that the fellowship program will help her optimize this program and make it a successful example for integration in a wider system. 

In the future, Dr. Ericksen hopes that integrated care will become more common, more acceptable and more useful for patients and providers. Expanding access and improving satisfaction rates for patients and providers is a worthy goal. She also hopes that integrated health systems can break through long held barriers preventing mental health and medical health providers from working together for overall wellness.   

Suzanne Dalgarn, ARNP, is a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner working in an outpatient clinic in Everett WA for the last 11 years. Her focus is the adult population with a special interest in ADHD, mood disorders and anxiety. She primarily meets with clients via telehealth, a mix of new and established patients for medication management and brief supportive therapy. She is also a professor of nursing at a local community college since 2000. Her focus at the college is mental health nursing. She has enjoyed mentoring future nurses into the role, helping them build empathy and understanding of clients struggling with mental health issues.

She is looking forward to the fellowship and the opportunities to gain better understanding of and skill in integrated care. She believes the community need is great for improved access and integration of care to help address the mental health challenges that impact global quality of life of all ages. She continues to envision that mental health and holistic wellbeing will and should be an ongoing focus of importance.

She sees this fellowship as an opportunity to build skills and strategies to improve access to care, continuity of care, and quality of care to the community at large.

In the next 5 years, she believes the emphasis on holistic care will continue to grow, as health providers build bridges together and with communities towards meeting best outcomes, providing clients with all the benefits of a holistic focus on mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. 

Sara Weelborg, ARNP is an adult psychiatric nurse practitioner in private practice in University Place. She also contracts with the Squaxin Island Health Clinic to provide psychiatric medication management via telemedicine and onsite medication management for the Northwest Indian Treatment Center. She is currently completing her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree at Boise State University; she received her master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and her post-master’s certificate at Rush University. She is a US Navy Nurse Corps retiree and has worked as a psychiatric nurse practitioner for 17 years in various settings.

Believing that patients can be well-served by receiving their mental health care within their familiar primary care practice setting, she is interested in incorporating the Collaborative Care Model into her current practice. She feels strongly that integrated care can help reduce stigma and improve access to timely mental health intervention. She hopes that participation in the fellowship will help her incorporate the Collaborative Care Model into her current practice so she can help improve access to care in her community and partner with primary care staff to share knowledge and experience to support their delivery of mental health services.

She hopes that five years from now, Collaborative Care/integrated care will be a common care delivery model in primary care practices rather than a novel idea.

Rozina Lakhani, MD has been providing personalized psychiatric treatment and burnout prevention training at Shifa Health in Everett and Mount Vernon, WA since 2003. She also shares tips for mental fitness for leaders as an author, a speaker, and a podcast host. Starting September 2022, Dr. Lakhani’s role is transitioning into directing a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Fellowship in Outpatient Psychiatry at the Shifa Institute of Happy and Healthy Minds. 

“Seeing tears in patients’ eyes change into smiles brings me the greatest joy in life. But it hurts my heart when I hear that they have waited for years to be able to see a psychiatric provider,”  Dr. Lakhani says. She hopes to bring the optimum whole person care within easy reach of the people who are suffering from stress, anxiety, and depression through the Collaborative Care Model.

Dr. Lakhani hopes that involvement with the UW Community-Based Integrated Care Fellowship will allow her to help facilitate collaboration between private practice psychiatry and primary care in her community. She can further impart the knowledge she gains to her fellows so more providers embrace this model and more people can live their best lives with health and happiness, avoiding unnecessary suffering.

In five years, she hopes that Collaborative Care/integrated care becomes the standard of care and is easily accessible for the majority of the population.