Behind Options MD is a team of experienced medical experts. They worked together with the founders, Morgan and Kyle, to create a unique virtual healthcare practice focused on providing treatment to individuals with major depressive disorder who have treatment-resistant depression.
The medical experts behind Options MD bring together a wealth of experience and knowledge in the healthcare industry. Each of their unique experiences helped to shape the individual care treatment and approach that makes Options MD different.
Dr. Marci is a physician, scientist, author, and entrepreneur in the health and technology sectors. He is a board-certified psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a part-time Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Marci is a strategic advisor and Interim Chief Medical Officer to Options MD. He has worked hand-in-hand with Options MD’s founders on go-to-market and clinical operations strategies.
He has been integral in developing Options MD’s patient assessment and treatment-matching logic, as well as helping management recruiting and onboard clinical hires.
Previously, Dr. Marci was Chief Psychiatrist or Chief Medical Officer at a number of venture-backed technology-enabled companies. He was the co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Innerscope Research, a pioneer in the field of consumer neuroscience. Innerscope Research was a data science and media research firm acquired by Nielsen in 2015, where he served as the first Global Chief Neuroscientist until 2019.
Dr. Marci received his B.A. with honors from Columbia University, M.A. from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and M.D. with honors from Harvard Medical School.
He completed two NIH fellowships in neuroscience, published numerous articles in peer-reviewed science journals, holds seven patents, and gives lectures nationally and internationally.
He is also the author of a new book on the impact of mobile media, communications, and information technology on the developing brain, published by Harvard University Press. The book is titled “Rewired: Protecting Your Brain in the Digital Age.”
Dr. Marci is also a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network as a 2014 Henry Crown Fellow.
Dr. Tamara Bendahan is the Options MD Director of Psychiatry. Dr. Tamara Bendahan is a board-certified adult psychiatrist with extensive experience with treatment-resistant depression, developing technology to improve the diagnosis and care of complex psychiatric patients, and leading teams of clinicians.
As Options MD’s Director of Psychiatry, Dr. Bendahan oversees Options MD’s clinical staff, manages quality, and leads external partnerships with the psychiatric and research communities.
Before joining Options MD, Dr. Bendahan served as Galileo Health's lead psychiatrist.
Dr. Brendahan completed her General Psychiatry Residency training at Columbia/New York State Psychiatric Institute and UCSF.
She has also received advanced training for psychoanalytic psychotherapy through the Columbia Psychoanalytic Fellowship, Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy through the Polaris Insight Center, and completed the Public Psychiatry Fellowship at UCSF, focusing on methods to treat patients struggling with depression and high-acuity cases of mental illness.
Dr. Bendahan’s clinical work has focused on using technology to improve mental health care access and delivery. As a UCSF fellow, she developed and implemented an adapted Collaborative Care program for patients with depression and provided psychiatric consultation to primary care providers.
She worked as a Clinical Instructor of Psychiatry at the UCSF San Francisco General Hospital, providing education and consultation to primary care providers, residents, and behavioral health clinicians.
Dr. Bendahan brings a deep understanding of the gaps in mental healthcare quality and delivery in the U.S. and experience from the public, academic, and private sectors in addressing these clinical challenges.
As the Director of Psychiatry at Options MD, she will focus on providing holistic, high-quality, and accessible care to patients with treatment-resistant mental illnesses.
Andrew Leuchter, MD, is an expert on the treatment of mood disorders and is a Medical Advisor to Options MD. He is a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCLA, where he also directs the Neuromodulation Division as well as the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Clinical and Research Service. The TMS Clinical and Research Service perform more than 7,000 individual TMS treatments each year for patients with treatment-resistant depression, chronic pain, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other neuropsychiatric illnesses.
He also maintains an active clinical practice, specializing in consultation and care for patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression.
Dr. Leuchter leads clinical trials to develop novel neuromodulation methods for the treatment of depression, pain, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), studying technologies such as TMS and Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation (TNS). He uses brain-imaging techniques, such as quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET), to examine brain function and predict which treatments are most likely to benefit individual patients.
Dr. Leuchter’s research programs combine clinical trials with neurophysiology and brain-imaging studies to inform clinical practice in treating depression.
He has authored over 200 scientific articles on topics including theories of antidepressant action, neuromodulation for the treatment of depression, and EEG biomarkers to guide the treatment of neuropsychiatric illness.
Dr.Leuchter is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association and the Clinical TMS Society.
He is a graduate of Stanford University earned his medical degree at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
Dr. Cohen is the Chief Resident for Research at the University of California San Francisco. His clinical and research work focuses on mood disorders, particularly treatment-resistant depression.
At the San Francisco VA, Dr. Cohen works in the specialty Mood Disorder Clinic, where he helps veterans using a wide variety of psychopharmacological, behavioral, and interventional approaches, including the most cutting-edge treatments for depression, such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Ketamine.
Dr. Cohen’s research aims to develop novel deep-brain stimulation therapies for depression and anxiety. His current work investigates the effect of synchrony between brain regions and circuits on emotional state.
At Options MD, Dr. Cohen is developing proprietary patient assessments to more accurately diagnose patients, predict side effects, identify personalized treatment plans for patients, and track symptoms and recovery over time. Dr. Cohen works with the Options MD data science team to integrate gold-standard assessment metrics into our ever-evolving treatment-matching algorithm.
Dr. Natalie Sheils is currently a director of AI and data science research at Sequelae. She worked previously at Optum, part of UnitedHealth Group as director of healthcare economics and a research scientist focused on AI and computational tools for healthcare.
Before joining UnitedHealth Group, Dr. Sheils earned her Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Washington. She did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota School of Mathematics.
Dr. Sheils is an author of more than 25 peer-reviewed journal articles and a frequent speaker at conferences, seminars, and colloquia. She serves as an advisor to Options MD. In this role, she advises on research projects, randomized control trial completion, prioritization of technical projects, and the build-out of algorithms in preparation for AI Learning.
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