Michele Novella, APRN-BC, is the medical director and owner of Star Psychiatric Healthcare in Danbury, CT. She is a past member of Western Connecticut Health Network’s (WCHN) medical staff where she worked in the Behavioral Health Department including Crisis Intervention, Intensive Outpatient Program running groups and teaching Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). In the Outpatient setting, Michele held several critical incident debriefings following traumatic events and losses that were experienced by the staff there.

After graduating from Fairfield University, Michele worked as a Registered Nurse at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Later, she worked at WCHN’s inpatient oncology unit before being asked to serve as Nurse Manager for the Outpatient Oncology & Chemotherapy Infusion Services at Associated Internists of Danbury. During that time, she received the prestigious American Cancer Society’s State‑Wide “Excellence in Oncology Nursing Award” in 1991.

Michele later pursued her Master’s Degree of Nursing from Yale University, graduating with Honors. She is Board Certified by the ANCC as both a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Adult Psychiatric Nursing, as well as a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner.

She holds specialized training in DBT and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and Critical Incident Stress Debriefing. She held a pivotal role in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Shootings and helped to organize and run the crisis services offered to the public at Newtown’s Reed Intermediate School and treated several of the Newtown Police Department’s first responders. She has been asked to speak to several groups on post‑traumatic stress disorder and stress responses after trauma.

Ms Novella was paid as a consultant for Takeda and Lundbeck.

Jay D. Fawver, MD, is the medical director at Parkview Mind‑Body Medicine in Fort Wayne, IN. At Mind‑Body Medicine, he orchestrates the treatment of over 8000 current patients in a shared pharmacological treatment model. He works with 10 nurse practitioners, assisted by nurses and medical assistants, utilizing customized electronic medical records to coordinate consistent clinical care with personalized and precision treatment strategies. His nurse practitioners provide integrated treatment by having access to direct consultation with Dr Fawver and the other nurse practitioners while utilizing treatment algorithms for various conditions and genetic profiles. Patients are monitored for treatment response and recovery utilizing patient-rated outcome metrics for mood, anxiety, cognition, insomnia, daily functioning, and side effects.

Since March 2020, Mind-Body Medicine has initiated telehealth for a majority of outpatients utilizing the new Epic Video Client internet platform. Utilizing this platform from their smartphones, tablets, or laptops, patients are prompted to complete outcome questionnaires on their MyChart portals 1 to 2 days prior to each appointment. These outcome metrics include the PHQ-9, GAD-7, Perceived Deficits Questionnaire (PDQ-20), Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS), and Patient Rated Inventory of Side Effects (PRISE), guiding treatment decisions and enhancing the efficiency of the outpatient video visit. Dr Fawver is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine and is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He has been named a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. A graduate of Purdue University School of Pharmacy, Dr Fawver was a pharmacist prior to his medical training. He has been an advisor to several pharmaceutical companies for over 30 years, participating as a principal investigator and assisting in the development of medication studies and outcomes of disease states such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and fibromyalgia with more recent work involving genetic correlations with medication treatment outcomes.

Since October 2019, Dr Fawver has been a certified Epic Physician Builder where he designs computer programs for charting in the electronic medical records based upon best practice guidelines.

Since 1997, he has been the host and producer of the Public Broadcasting System’s Matters of the Mind with Dr Jay Fawver, a weekly 30-minute live call-in television program addressing mental health topics.

Dr Fawver was paid as a consultant for Takeda and Lundbeck.