The Astonishing Truth About Psych Wards with Morgan Shields

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Anyone ever admitted to a hospital could be asked to rate their experience. Except one place - psych wards.  

People who go into psychiatric hospitals were never sampled about their experience, until the year 2026. Because they weren't considered reliable or trustworthy.  

Today we talk to Morgan Shields, a professor of public health, who has launched her career by asking who rates psych wards, if not those receiving the care? Who holds psychiatric units accountable? And why do their North Stars seem so wrong?

Morgan knows of what she speaks because as a teenager and young adult, she was both voluntarily and involuntarily admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Her knowledge and work could vastly improve mental health care in the nation's psychiatric hospitals. 

You can find out more about Morgan Shields, and her work at her Washington University webpage. 

Find the link to the eye-opening study results she discusses about human rights and civil that was published in JAMA here. 

In the episode, she read the last four lines of a poem that she wrote about her experience in a psychiatric hospital. It's entitled "The memory of being killed" and she put it in her dissertation, dedicating it to all people who were or will be admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Find the full poem and dedication here. 

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This episode was edited and co-produced by Kate Rusk-Kosa. Theme music comes to us from Paul Swartzel. It was executive produced by Frank Kosa and Janet Yang.