Advocacy Spotlight: Dr. Devika Bhushan
In August 2022, Dr. Devika Bhushan was serving as the acting Surgeon General for the state of California. She’d previously served as its first Chief Health Officer. At this height of her career, in order to help dispel stigma and spread hope, she saw an opportunity to share her truth in a very visible way.
Dr. Bhushan was the keynote speaker of NAMI California’s annual conference, set to discuss her work on screening tools and protocols for children or adults with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and evidence-based treatments for toxic stress. In her lecture, she also spoke about her own experiences with bipolar disorder. She concurrently released an LA Times op-ed that detailed her journey. “There is such power in telling the stories of our mental illness", she says. She spoke of the impact of her disclosure with NPR’s Health Shots.
Years earlier, Dr. Bhushan had to step away at times from medical school and pediatrics residency because of bipolar mood episodes induced by day-night switches and 30-hour calls. At the time, she was advised by well-meaning mentors and her treatment team not to share her reasons for time away because of fears around later career repercussions, given rampant stereotypes, including among peers and supervisors, regarding those with bipolar disorder. Secrecy regarding her reasons for needing time off generated frustration among her colleagues and amplified her own struggles at the time to accept her health challenges as legitimate. She reflected on her silence regarding her condition during her residency, “[my peers were] unable to see what mental illness looks like in a physician colleague”.
Dr. Bhushan spent years learning to manage her condition through medication and behavioral strategies, including recognizing the outsized effects of disrupted Circadian rhythms, an everyday challenge for medical residents and physicians, on those with bipolar disorder. After spending time on faculty and as a gender equity researcher at Stanford, she transitioned into leadership work in public health and policy on trauma and resilience with the California state government.
Today, Dr. Bhushan consults and advises a number of entities to drive health innovation, equity, and resilience, and continues work to destigmatize mental health and enhance well-being through storytelling. She has just launched a well-being newsletter and community called “Ask Dr. Devika B”, as well as a YouTube channel called “Spread the Light”. These platforms are bidirectional: she will share insights on health topics, and participants will share their own experiences with mental illness. To quote her from a video: “stigma festers in the dark — when we don’t talk about our mental health — and scatters in the light, when we do.” She is also working with a team to craft a documentary to educate, inspire, and dispel stereotypes around bipolar disorder, called BrainStorm. This advocacy work, she says, “will build connections between many nodes of light.”
“Combatting stigma around mental illness is a complex and never-ending battle. Dr. Bhushan sharing her journey, from both her personal experience but also as an accomplished practitioner, as well as her perspective as the acting Surgeon General of California, really changed lives. This multilevel approach to storytelling really shone a light on the importance of self-care and compassion and the urgency with which we must address the broken and outdated mental health care system. Dr. Bhushan’s honest and personable storytelling, paired with the important research and messages of hope she shared, moved many in our audience to tears and ended in a well-deserved standing ovation.”
Devika Bhushan, MD
Pediatrician, Public Health Leader, and Writer
Guest Author: Corinne Stroum.
Corinne Stroum is a subject matter expert on the data footprint of healthcare: clinical or claims-based, she is experienced with structured data, patient experience surveys, socio-economic factors and social determinants, and unstructured notes.
The Sharp Index Awards are a yearlong celebration of the good news in healthcare. Winners are nominated throughout the year for their work. Dr. Bhushan was nominated, and won the award for, Mental Health Advocacy.
There is much work to do, and healthcare healing involves everyone. This year, winners will be announced at HealthIMPACT East in New York City.