Breaking Stigmas in Mental Health

Dalia Mammo serves crises in the community

By Sarah Kittle

Dalia Mammo, M.D., is the Medical Director of Crisis Services at Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network. Opening this winter, the center will provide 24/7 psychiatric crisis intervention services for the underserved community in Detroit and Wayne County. Providing outreach, quick response to a wide age range of patients, and thirty-two beds for care, it will be a first-of-its-kind adult and child and adolescent crisis center in the state.

Armed with initiative and passion towards providing services to communities in need, Dr. Mammo felt a call to help individuals experiencing mental health concerns. “Throughout my clinical rotations, I was drawn to the field of psychiatry,” she explains. Mammo, a dual board-certified psychiatrist, completed her residency and fellowship at Detroit Medical Center/Wayne State University and graduated in June.

You might say psychiatry runs in her blood. Her maternal grandfather, Dr. Fadhil Zia Yousif, was a psychiatrist in Iraq, and she grew up admiring him and hearing stories about how he was the first psychiatrist in Basra and opened the first psychiatric ward there. “He was a trailblazer,” she says. “I decided in med school to follow in his footsteps.”

Dr. Mammo did her undergraduate studies at University of Michigan, where she was vice president of Honor Council and took part in several mission trips – one to Greece and others to sites in the US to help individuals with developmental disabilities. After earning her Bachelor of Science in French and Francophone Studies from U of M, she spent some time teaching and volunteering in France.

Dalia earned her Doctor of Medicine from Central Michigan University College of Medicine, where she served as vice president of the medical student council and a student representative during the medical school’s pursuit of accreditation. During her time at CMU, she co-founded the Global Health Equity Student Interest Group and Alternative Breaks, a program which organized medical mission trips to Haiti. Mammo coordinated and led the first two trips. She was inducted in the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

At Detroit Medical Center/Wayne State University, Mammo held various roles, including Psychiatry Resident Physician, followed by Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellow, and eventually Chief Fellow in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. She went on a mission trip to Iraq to assess the mental health needs of the children and adolescents that live there. She knew she wanted to specialize in child and adolescent psychiatry. “People asked me, ‘why?’” Dalia laughs.

Dr. Mammo likes talking to kids in groups. She wants to remove the stigma of mental health, specifically with young people; unfortunately, there’s a long wait list for child psychiatrists in our state. “They need to know they’re not alone,” she says, “and that they can ask for help.”

If there’s a shortage of psychiatrists to treat kids, then there’s a dearth of doctors to assist Chaldean kids. It’s not that they aren’t seeking assistance. “Reactions have changed,” declares Dr. Mammo, referring to a time when the Chaldean community was resistant to mental health care. “People are excited to see Chaldean psychiatrists,” she asserts, “especially child psychiatrists.”

Says Mammo, “Providers need to understand Chaldean culture. Hopefully, there will be an increase in Chaldean mental health providers.” Culture can influence treatment. Sometimes extreme embarrassment will result in nontreatment or there is the perception that mental health issues are a crisis in faith.

“It’s okay not to be okay,” says Dr. Mammo.

Dr. Mammo believes in giving back to the community she was raised in and is the vice president of CAAHP, the Chaldean American Association for Health Professionals, a nonprofit and nonpolitical educational organization founded in 1999 to support Chaldean health care providers.

Made up of physicians, pharmacists, dentists, nurses, and other allied health professionals of Chaldean descent, CAAHP serves as a professional forum offering education, networking, and community service opportunities. Mammo and her colleagues work with other organizations like the Chaldean Community Foundation to provide free or low-cost healthcare to the underserved through programs like Project Bismutha, just like Mammo’s grandfather did in Iraq.

“I have a care for the underserved,” says Mammo.

That’s an understatement.