Learning the Politics of Mental Health DURING A RESIDENCY IN PSYCHIATRY MICHAEL D. BARNETT, M.D. '99
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Initially it may have seemed that Americans were simply Michael D. Barnett, M.D. '99, right, sits with his wife, Laura Otolski, who is holding a framed copy of the first page of the bill he drafted while working as a congressional fellow for Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), left. |
Initially it may have seemed that Americans were simply taking charge of their safety and doing everything possible to protect themselves against future terrorists attacks. Not so, says psychiatrist Michael D. Barnett, M.D. '99. In his view, Americans were riding a tidal wave of over-inflated panic and fear, the inadvertent result of the government's minute-by-minute efforts to inform citizens about the rash of terrorist attacks across the nation and throughout the world. He believes the government was so focused on rooting out terrorists that it paid little or no attention to the need to increase the psychological resilience of the American public. "Terrorism has nothing to do with airplanes and buildings," he declares, referring to the September 11 attack and the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. "A terrorist act is nothing more than a vector, a way to create xenophobia and anxiety, and basically, to bring a society to its knees."
A recipient of the American Psychiatric Foundation's Daniel X. Freedman Congressional Fellowship for 2003, Dr. Barnett spent the last six months of his residency at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., working on legislation to fund mental health programs for survivors of terrorism. The six-month fellowship, established in honor of the late APA president, Daniel X. Freedman, M.D., allows senior psychiatry residents to learn about federal health policy - with a focus on mental health and other healthcare issues - by working in a Congressional office.
Dr. Barnett was assigned to work with Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) on national mental health policy. In fact he was asked to review and update a bill Kennedy had written to fund community mental health centers treating people for the psychological after-effects of a terrorist attack. "The bill looked at the post event, at cleaning up the pieces after people were traumatized," Dr. Barnett says. "But it didn't look at ways of psychologically strengthening the public so there'd be fewer pieces to clean up."
In Washington, Dr. Barnett immersed himself in the world of politics. He met and brainstormed with top government and mental health policy officials within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Office of the Surgeon General. He also helped draft the National Resilience Development Act of 2003, H.R. 2370, designed to direct federal money and expertise to programs designed to psychologically prepare Americans for trauma caused by terror. The bill requires states to direct at least 1 percent of funds awarded them for bioterrorism preparedness to plan for helping people deal with terrorism's psychological aftermath. It would also create a task force within the DHHS and integrate its efforts with those of the Department of Homeland Security.
Dr. Barnett says he was surprised at how much he enjoyed helping to draft the bill, given his disinterest in political science, not to mention college. He dropped out of the University of Cincinnati and Adelphi University before realizing that to get anywhere professionally he'd have to go to college. Ultimately he graduated from Hunter College with a degree in philosophy and an awardwinning senior thesis on the "Transcendental Deduction of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason." But philosophy offered no realistic career opportunities. Business didn't appeal to him. And, teaching fitness, which he liked, wasn't intellectually challenging. "I remember telling a good friend that I wanted to see if I could be a doctor," he recalled. The rest, as they say, is history.
Dr. Barnett was assigned to work with Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) on national mental health policy. |