Congratulations to fourth year medical student Olivia Peterson, this year’s recipient of the Margaret O’Donnell Prize in Psychiatry. We award this prize to a senior medical student who has been highly involved in behavioral health issues and has done outstanding academic work in psychiatry.

During her inpatient psychiatry rotation at Harborview Medical Center, Olivia worked with psychiatry and internal medicine teams to coordinate care for patients experiencing acute psychosis and cellulitis after losing access to medication because of housing and transportation challenges. This experience has inspired Olivia to apply for combined Medicine-Psychiatry residency programs, and she was selected by her psychiatry attending to speak on a clerkship panel, sharing how this experience shaped her career goals.

Olivia’s commitment extends to research as well. She currently leads a retrospective cohort study at Seattle Children’s Hospital examining medical workups for pediatric first-episode psychosis, with the goal of improving diagnostic accuracy and patient safety. She also contributes to national scholarship through the Association of Medicine and Psychiatry and a multi-institutional systematic review focused on diabetes care in serious mental illness.

“Together, these experiences reflect my commitment to integrated behavioral health care, psychiatry scholarship, and advocacy for patients whose needs often fall through the cracks of a siloed health care system,” Olivia says.

We thank her for the amazing work she has done thus far for our field, and for the many things we know she will accomplish as a psychiatrist and colleague in the future.