The topic of the 2024 Ann W. Caldwell President’s Lecture: Interprofessional Rounds was “Gender and Sexuality: Providing Compassion Care for the Adolescent Population” on January 17.

An audience of more than 500 second-year direct-entry students attended the virtual event, where panelists shared their experiences from various perspectives, including providers with expertise in adolescent mental health, transgender health, and gender-affirming care, as well as persons with lived experience as adolescents identifying as part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Panelists were:

  • Ariel Frey-Vogel, MD, Associate Program Director for the MGHfC Pediatric Residency Program, the founder and director of the MGHfC Pediatric Education, Innovation, and Research Center (PEIRC), and Director of Child and Adolescent Services at the MGH Transgender Health Center
  • Becca Willman, OTD ’23, a mental health occupational therapist serving children, adolescents, and adults at the Home for Little Wanderers and McLean SouthEast
  • Kelly Nash, SW, a licensed social worker currently working as a school counselor serving children in the New York City area at a private school for students with learning, mood, and emotional differences
  • Kai Camara, DNP ’23, MS-NU '22, a psychiatric and mental health nurse practitioner serving clients throughout the lifespan at the Transhealth community healthcare center in western Massachusetts 

Maggie Flynn Greelish, OTD ’20, Director of Rehab and Inpatient Group Therapy at McLean SouthEast, moderated the panel.

The goals of the event were:

  • Reflect on examples of providing compassionate care to the LGBTQ+ adolescent population.
  • Identify how systems affect individual care for the LGBTQ+ adolescent population.
  • Identify the ways in which interprofessional teams can intervene to increase justice and equity in care for the LGBTQ+ adolescent population and their families/caregivers.

Named after the MGH Institute’s fourth president (1997–2007), the Caldwell lecture provides examples of how clinical teams collaborate to provide patient-centered care and reinforce the school’s mission to prepare health professionals to advance care for a diverse society.