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March is Women’s History Month and NAMI Minnesota (National Alliance on Mental Illness) will host a free online panel celebrating the work of trailblazing women psychiatrists from Minnesota from 1 to 2 p.m. March 24. Panel members Dr. Dionne Hart, Dr. Judith Kashtan and moderator Dr. Carrie Borchardt will talk about their work as leaders in the field of psychiatry. To register for this event, go to namimn.org and click on “classes” or call 651-645-2948 for more information.

Hart is an adjunct assistant professor at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine and Science and the first and only Black woman to be elected to the Minnesota Medical Association’s board of trustees. Her advocacy efforts led to her selection as the 2014 Minnesota Psychiatrist of the Year and a 2017 Exemplary Psychiatrist Award by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. In 2020, the Minnesota Physician medical journal named her one of the 100 most influential healthcare leaders in Minnesota.

Kashtan has been in solo private practice in Minneapolis since 1984 and has had a particular interest in the needs and concerns of women patients. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches residents how to do psychotherapy. She was elected the first woman president of the Minnesota Psychiatric Society in 1995 and served as a member of the board of trustees of the American Psychiatric Association from 2012 to 2015.

Borchardt is a recently retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and is NAMI Minnesota’s board president. She was on the University of Minnesota faculty for 15 years, where she was medical director for the adolescent inpatient service and she did research on child and adolescent mood disorders and anxiety disorders. Subsequent to that she was a medical director at Children’s Minnesota where she practiced for 17 years.