Mary Margaret Gleason, MD
1998-2003
Infant Mental Health
Residency Training
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
In medical school, I wanted to be a pediatrician. The more pediatrics I did, the more intrigued I was with the complexities of individual and family responses to illness, and the impact of social and community factors on development and medical illness. I realized that I wanted to become a physician who had the sophisticated tools to evaluate, treat, and support children and families in these contexts. The strong, clinically-focused training in all three disciplines, academic resources, and tradition of advocacy made Brown an appealing training program.
I loved that we had opportunities for longitudinal relationships with families. We spend 5 years in the pediatric clinic as the primary care providers for families. At the end of residency, the infants I met in the NICU were going to kindgergarten- and I had been with them the whole time. What a way to learn about development and families! Residency gave me opportunities I didn’t even know I wanted - including research, which I have continued to do. The triple board family- my classmates, co-residents, and training director made this a wonderful 5 years! I cannot think of anything I do that isn’t impacted by my triple board training. After residency, I trained at Tulane University in Infant Mental Heatlh. As an infant and early childhood specialist, I am comfortable assessing and addressing development, dysmorphology, family dynamics, abuse, psychopathology (parents and children), and developing treatment plans that truly consider biological, psychological, and social factors. It’s often hard to know what is the “pediatrics” and what is ”child psychiatry”.
At its best, triple boardedness is humbling -there is always more to learn, collaborative – it’s too big to do alone inspiring- patients and colleagues continue to amaze me, a privilege- we enter into unique, intimate relationships with families, and most importantly: fun