KCET Television Features Occupational Therapy Doctorate Resident
March 14, 2013

USC’s Eisner New Family Care Team was recently featured on KCET’s award-winning news series SoCal Connected for a new pilot program which helps low income and minority women cope with postpartum depression. The program was created in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Perinatal Mental Health Task Force and utilizes a comprehensive team approach, including occupational therapists, to detect cases of maternal depression and intervene in a systematic way.

Francine Tan, USC occupational therapy doctoral resident at the USC-Eisner Family Medicine Center, explains the value that team-based care offers this vulnerable population. “We are really just trying to bring everything to the table to really come up with an effective treatment plan, and I don’t think one profession really can do it all,” explains Tan. “I think it takes the perspective and the care of a lot of different professions.”

This program is the first of its kind in Los Angeles, and although the task force and the clinic are still collecting outcomes data, they know they are having an impact.

“We are absolutely helping people,” Tan said.

The program is one of several recent initiatives by the Division’s clinical faculty, led by assistant professor of clinical occupational therapy Michelle Farmer, to integrate occupational therapy in primary care settings.

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