Women's Perinatal Depression Team
Team Leader
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Sheila Marcus, MD, Clinical Director of the Psychiatry Division, and Section Director of is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School and completed residency training in adult, child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Michigan. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Associate Clinical Director of the Depression Center. Her academic and clinical area of interest is women's mood disorders as they present through the lifespan, including during adolescence, the childbearing years, and during menopause. Other interests are innovative uses of information technology as an educational and research tool and mental health care delivery. |
Psychiatry
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Duane DiFranco, MD is Medical Director, the Michigan Center for Diagnosis and Referral. He completed his M.D. at University of Michigan. Dr. DiFranco's research interests focus on behavioral health services. Clinical interests include general adult psychiatry and brief dynamic psychotherapy. |
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Juan Lopez, MD is a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. He completed his residency training and a genetics fellowship in research at the University of Michigan Mental Health Research Institute. Dr. Lopez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry as well as an Assistant Research Scientist in the Mental Health Research Institute at the University of Michigan. His research interests have focused on depression, serotonin, and the stress axis. Dr. Lopez is a frequent lecturer to medical students, residents of other medical specialties, primary care physicians, and psychiatrists. |
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Lisa Seyfried, MD is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School. She completed her psychiatry residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital where she served as chief resident. She is now a Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. Her academic and clinical interests include mood disorders in women and consultation-liaison psychiatry. |
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Elizabeth Young, MD, Research Director of the Psychiatry Division is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan and a Research Scientist at the Mental Health Research Institute. She completed her residency training in psychiatry at Ohio State University and a fellowship in mood disorders at the University of Michigan. Dr. Young has had a long academic career in the area of depression and hypothalamic-pituitary axis (HPA) abnormalities. She has published on a variety of topics including stress and the hypothalamic pituitary axis, and the relationship of the neuroendocrine system to post-traumatic stress disorder and rheumatic diseases. She is also an experienced researcher examining gender differences in the onset and course of major depression. |
Psychology
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Heather Flynn, PhD is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Division of Substance Abuse. Trained as a clinical psychologist, her primary research interests include depression and alcohol use, particularly in women, as well as prevention and brief intervention with mental health and substance abuse in primary care settings. Dr. Flynn has conducted research and published in the area of depression including vulnerability factors for depression, time series methodology, and the recurrent nature of depression. She has also worked on studies involving large-scale screening for depression and alcohol problems. Dr. Flynn is conducting a project aimed at identification of, and intervention with, alcohol use and depression in pregnancy. |
Nursing
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Margaret Amburgey, MS, RN, CS, NP received a master's degree from the University of Michigan and is certified as a specialist in Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing through the American Nurses Credentialing Center and is a Certified Nurse Practitioner through the Michigan State Board of Nursing. She has extensive experience in treating adult patients with anxiety and depression, specializing in cognitive-behavioral and medication treatments. As a specialists in the treatment of students, she works at the University of Michigan Counseling and Psychological Services. She is also active in the Women's Health Program where she treats women with affective illness, particularly during pregnancy the and postpartum phase. |
Social Work
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JoAnn Heap, MSW, ACSW is a Clinical Social Worker with experience in treatment for all types of mental illness, having assisted patients and families for ten years on the inpatient psychiatric unit at U of M Hospital. She has maintained a practice in individual and group treatment in an outpatient setting as well. She currently supervises a team of clinicians providing DBT treatment in Community Mental Health settings and is developing programs and training clinicians at Riverview Outpatient Clinic. She has a bachelor's degree from Michigan State University and a Masters degree from University of Michigan. She speaks to audiences about treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder. |
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Patricia Melnick, MSW completed both her undergraduate work in psychology and masters in social work at the University of Michigan. She has prior clinical experience in substance abuse treatments, and residential and outpatient treatments with adolescents. Her interests lie in treatment of depressive disorders and schizophrenia, and she works in a number of venues with individuals with chronic illness at both the University of Michigan and the Community Mental Health setting. |
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Laura Nitzberg, MSW is a graduate of Barnard College of Columbia University and Columbia University School of Social Work where she received her master's degree in 1975. She received advanced family therapy training at the Ackerman Institute in New York City. She has over twenty-five years experience caring for individuals, couples and families. She specializes in helping families who have relatives with mental illness and treating dual-career couples. Laura educates psychiatric residents and other graduate students in the area of couples and family therapy. She is also on the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Social Work. |