Profiles in Medicine - Dr. Olivia Okereke M.D., M.S
Empowering diverse voices to redefine the landscape of geriatric mental health and Alzheimer’s care
Dr. Olivia Okereke, M.D., M.S. is the Director of Geriatric Psychiatry and Director of the MGH Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and an Associate Professor in Epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Okereke’s journey into medicine and research is rooted in a family tradition of healthcare and public service. Surrounded by a family of dedicated medical professionals, she witnessed the impact that compassionate, skilled healthcare could have on individuals and communities. Her research is aimed at identifying risk factors, including diet, lifestyle, and the identification of biomarkers associated with healthy aging. Her focus has been to understand early mood and cognitive changes related to memory disorders and translating this knowledge into innovative strategies to prevent anxiety, depression, and cognitive decline in older adults. Through her leadership as the inaugural Director of the Mass General Hospital Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice (CORE-J), the Center has become a pivotal resource for underrepresented researchers and a model for equity-driven psychiatric care.
Tell us a little bit about your childhood, and how your upbringing, family, or cultural background shaped your decision to pursue a career in medicine.
I grew up as one of five children in Western New York. My family background definitely shaped my desire to pursue a career in medicine. My mother is a retired nurse, and my father is a retired physician. Among just my immediate family members, first cousins, aunts and uncles there are over a dozen doctors, nurses, public health officials, and other medical and health professionals. My family served as an inspiration for me to choose medicine, as I admired them and also could see what a rewarding path that healthcare was for them.
Who are the individuals, either personally or professionally, who have inspired you the most in your medical journey, and what have you learned from them?
I am a geriatric psychiatrist and physician-scientist in the area of Alzheimer, dementia and late-life mental health research. My path was greatly influenced at early stages by women in medicine, and two examples are top-of-mind. Dr. Cornelia Cremens – a geriatric psychiatrist, medical-psychiatric consultation/liaison physician, and expert in dementia and ethics of end-of-life care – was a key inspiration for me to pursue sub-specialty training in geriatric psychiatry. Leading by example, Dr. Cremens inspired me to apply at all times a rigorous focus on the integration of patients’ mental health issues and larger medical context and co-morbidities. Dr. Deborah Blacker – a multi-talented geriatric psychiatrist, psychiatric epidemiologist and geneticist, and Alzheimer/dementia expert – encouraged me to make the pivotal decision to go “back to school” and obtain a Master’s degree in epidemiology, to equip myself with the necessary skills to answer the research questions of greatest interest to me. In addition to being a role model for the kind of career I wanted to achieve, Dr. Blacker has been an all-around career mentor and supportive force throughout my career trajectory.
What personal philosophy or guiding principle do you rely on to stay motivated and passionate in the demanding field of medicine/research?
I believe it is essential to have a personal philosophy about how and why we do what we do, and I have developed a guiding principle in developing and sustaining my research career. This is a personalized approach that I like to call my “5-year rule” – that is, using 5-year time blocks of critical change in which I thoroughly reflect on my true passions and interests, inventory my skills to date, make a critical assessment of the gaps in those skills, and then identify the new tools and knowledge required to bridge the gap to the next 5-year horizon of growth, discovery and impact in my work.
In what ways do you believe female medical professionals can bring unique perspectives or strengths to the field?
Women bring unique perspectives and critical strengths in their careers as medical professionals. For example, women tend to use a more holistic rather than compartmentalized approach to issues; thus, women in medicine tend to be effective not only at solving the problems at hand, but also at identifying and anticipating their underlying drivers. Another example is that women tend to be patient, good listeners and are process-oriented, which is essential for being inclusive of the knowledge and contributions of diverse teams of health professionals who are all working toward the same goals.
What impact do you hope the Mass General Hospital Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice (CORE-J) will have?
As inaugural Director of the Mass General Hospital Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice (CORE-J), I am delighted to say that it has already had great impact, both regionally and nationally. First, the Center provided a kind of launchpad for submitting a grant from our institution to a type of major federal award called a Center grant – an Alzheimer’s Resource Center for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR). We are now one of 18 centers in this national program that prioritizes the training, mentorship and career advancement of early-career researchers from underrepresented backgrounds who conduct social and behavioral research in aging. Our particular center – called Mass-ENVISION – is the first such RCMAR in the entire New England region in nearly 20 years. Second, we published a peer-reviewed article that described of our process in creating the Psychiatry CORE-J in Psychiatric Services, a journal that is published by the American Psychiatric Association; thus, we ensured that information about this Center was provided to a national outlet, with the hope of inspiring other Psychiatry Departments around the nation to consider similar initiatives.
What inspired you to pursue Alzheimer's research, what compelling questions were you wanting to answer, and how has your work evolved over time?
The research questions that interested me the most during my early career were inspired by the patients and community members I had met: What risk factors drive who develops Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) or not? What factors underlie the observable disparities in dementia among Black patients, who were shown to have higher AD risk yet slower time to diagnosis? These questions actually played a large role in my decision to go back to school and “re-tool” by getting a Master’s degree in Epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. I recognized that, although these were the kinds of questions that most intrigued me, I lacked fundamental research methods and skills to tackle them. My work has evolved over time from identifying risk and protective factors for cognitive decline in aging to developing preventive strategies and interventions, including conducting rigorous tests of these interventions in clinical trials.
Can you share some of the most exciting advancements or breakthroughs happening in Alzheimer’s research right now?
The advances in blood-based biomarkers of Alzheimer disease and related dementias are extremely exciting. This is because having reliable, valid clinical biomarkers measured in plasma – something that can be obtained simply, by getting a blood sample – presents a major opportunity to advance equity in Alzheimer clinical trial research. For example, patients from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, people of color, and others who have often been unable to participate in research that involved more onerous or time-intensive tests can now participate in more research. Further, the advancements in blood-based biomarkers are bringing us closer to a time when people can get a more accurate understanding of their Alzheimer’s risk from something as simple as a blood draw.