Mental Health Trailblazers Podcast S1 Ep15: Dr. Mijung Park

Episode Summary

Dr. Mijung Park, a tenured Associate Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing, joins Indrias to discuss subjects such as vertical cultural differences via generational modifications and acculturation relevant across minority communities, ways Dr. Park drew attention to her study findings on stress in living environments to collectively help policy makers think about city design in a context of health, and the personal impacts of anti-Asian sentiments not just historically but also in the age of the COVID-19 crisis.

Episode Notes

Enjoy the season one finale of “Mental Health Trailblazers, Psychiatric Nurses Speak Up,” where our host Indrias Kassaye will be interviewing Dr. Mijung Park, a tenured Associate Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing. Through years of analysis and education, Dr. Park’s research has investigated the meaningful roles that both casual caregivers and close family play in fruitful chronic disease self-management between culturally and economically diverse communities.

After a fateful encounter on a subway in Korea, Dr. Parks was inspired to work in a psychiatric mental health inpatient unit as her first job post-graduation. Growing throughout her career as a nurse scholar, Dr. Park views her role within the field as translating complex concepts of care and health into more understandable cross-cultural language to aid not just patients but loved ones in understanding the world of psychiatric medicine.

Over the course of this episode, Dr. Park and Indrias connect on subjects such as vertical cultural differences via generational modifications and acculturation relevant across minority communities, ways Dr. Park drew attention to her study findings on stress in living environments to collectively help policy makers think about city design in a context of health, and the personal impacts of anti-Asian sentiments not just historically but also in the age of the COVID-19 crisis.

If you want to understand Dr. Park’s concerns regarding the current practice of looking at entire populations as a unifying cultural group vs. unique subcultures, aspire to discover more about the model minority myth in its portrayal of Asian immigrant groups along with its stressful consequences for those who don’t fit the mold, or just hope to pick up recommendations for psychiatric and mental health nurses providing care for patients from ethnic minorities, then catch this episode now. To learn more about Dr. Mijung Park, visit https://profiles.ucsf.edu/mijung.park.