Women's Mental Health Service
Director: Michael Caucci, MD
Service: The Vanderbilt Women’s Mental Health Service is an outpatient clinical program headed by Dr. Michael Caucci, an attending psychiatrist with specially training in consultation – liaison psychiatry and addiction medicine, that offers treatment to women during the perinatal period (preconceptional pregnancy planning up to 1 year postpartum) who experience psychiatric illness. Through collaboration with the Vanderbilt LGBTQ Health Network this program extends services to persons with gender identity dysphoria, who are seeking psychiatric assessment for gender affirming surgeries or who are needing medication management for underlying psychiatric illness.
The general clinic of the Vanderbilt Women’s Mental Health Service, distributed between The Village at Vanderbilt and the Vanderbilt Center for Women’s Health at 100 Oaks, serves perinatal clients struggling with psychiatric symptoms without significant addiction history. Nurse Practitioner, Shawn Wright, and Dr. Caucci provide consultation and medication management during the perinatal period up to 6 months to one year postpartum.
The addiction clinic of the Vanderbilt Women’s Mental Health Service, embedded within the Vanderbilt Clinic of Women’s Health at 100 Oaks, is an extension of the Vanderbilt Maternal Addiction Recovery Program (VMARP). It serves clients during the perinatal period to over 1 year postpartum who require long-term buprenorphine maintenance for opioid use disorder. As part of the VMARP, the Vanderbilt Women’s Mental Health Service has access to Obstetrics and Gynecology providers, social worker, and addiction groups. In this branch of our service Dr. Caucci provides buprenorphine assisted treatment and dual diagnosis (substance use disorders and other psychiatric illnesses) medication management.
Education: The service offers opportunities for medical students, residents and fellows in the Psychiatry and Obstetric & Gynecology residency programs, as well as psychiatric nurse practitioners, to engage in treating psychiatric conditions over the course of the perinatal period. Interested trainees may participate in the general or addiction clinic.