Illuminating Health

Rethinking Mental Health Care for Older Adults

Americans with serious mental illness — such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia — have a life expectancy that is 10 to 25-years shorter than the general public, meaning that “senior age” for this group is just 55 years old. Kate Melino [https://profiles.ucsf.edu/kate.melino], associate professor and a 2026 Macy Faculty Scholar [https://nursing.ucsf.edu/news/katerina-melino-named-2026-macy-faculty-scholar], is an expert in the mental health care of older adults and adults with serious mental illness. On this episode of Illuminating Health, Melino talks about the clinical and educational interventions needed to ensure older adults receive high quality mental health care.

Nurses Leading the Future of Rural Health

Americans living in rural areas are more likely to die early from cancer, heart disease, and stroke, than those living in urban areas. A key reason for this difference? Limited access to health care. On this episode of Illuminating Health, associate professor Elizabeth Castillo shares how her childhood in California’s San Joaquin Valley shaped her understanding of health care access, inspiring her career path, and discusses why nurses are uniquely equipped to lead efforts to increase primary care access in rural communities.

Gut Feelings: Exploring the Microbiome’s Role in Health and Healing

Associate Professor Cherry Leung and Professor Sandra Weiss are nurse scientists who lead research on the gut microbiome, investigating not only how it impacts human health, but how an understanding of the microbiome can help us treat or even prevent certain health conditions.  On this episode of Illuminating Health, Leung and Weiss discuss their research and its implications for patient care. This engaging conversation covers a range of topics, including the relationship between the gut and adolescent depression, how infant gut bacteria impacts stress regulation, probiotics’ potential to influence emotional well-being, and more.

Care in Community: How Shared Medical Appointments Improve Diabetes Care and Education

About one in 10 Americans have diabetes, a chronic condition that can lead to circulatory, renal and nervous system disorders. The Hispanic population in the United States is disproportionately impacted by diabetes, with Hispanic individuals being 1.5 times more likely to die from diabetes than non-Hispanic whites. Leticia (Lety) Wilke and Kathleen (Katie) Judge, current students in UCSF’s Post Master’s Entry to the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) pathway, are leading efforts to address this inequity by providing diabetes care and education in Spanish for Spanish-speaking patients at their endocrinology clinic. In this episode, Wilke and Judge discuss their work highlighting how an interprofessional team-led shared appointment model of care is effective in advancing diabetes care and education for linguistically diverse patients. The guest host for this episode is Allie Siegel, a student in the school’s BSN Entry to the DNP pathway, Family Nurse Practitioner specialty.

From AI to Virtual Nursing: Leveraging Technology in Nursing Practice

Artificial intelligence, remote health monitoring, virtual nursing – the potential for technology to enhance patient care and the delivery of services is limitless.  Few people know this better than Kay Burke [https://profiles.ucsf.edu/kay.burke], UCSF Health’s chief nursing informatics officer and a current student in the School of Nursing’s Post-Master's Doctor of Nursing Practice pathway [https://nursing.ucsf.edu/admissions/welcome-ucsf-nursing/doctoral-programs/post-masters-entry-dnp-leadership-focus]. In this episode, Burke shares engaging, real-world examples of how she and her team of nurses are leveraging innovative digital tools to improve the lives of UCSF patients and providers, and offers her predictions for what’s next for technology and nursing practice.  The guest host for this episode is Aean Peattie, a student in the school’s Adult-Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist specialty and president of UCSF’s Associated Students of the School of Nursing.