When Diabetes Meets Depression - lessons from the Bronx
With Dr. Alyson Myers
Stories to Solutions
Interview Recorded On: Jan 17, 2026
Dr. Myers is triple board-certified in endocrinology, internal medicine, and psychiatry — a combination rare enough that her training program at Rush University has since closed. She practices in the Bronx, where she treats patients navigating poverty, housing instability, food insecurity, and a healthcare system not built with them in mind. Diabetes runs on both sides of her own family. This made her pay attention differently.
Her interview covers the bidirectional relationship between metabolic and mental health, the structural barriers that get mislabeled as patient non-compliance, and a data-driven innovation her team built after a five-year chart review revealed a 44 percent amputation rate among diabetic foot ulcer patients at their hospitals.
Her interview covers the bidirectional relationship between metabolic and mental health, the structural barriers that get mislabeled as patient non-compliance, and a data-driven innovation her team built after a five-year chart review revealed a 44 percent amputation rate among diabetic foot ulcer patients at their hospitals.
Interview Recorded on: Jan 17, 2026
Growing up in a Spanish-speaking household in Truckee, California, Marcos Cota watched families struggle to navigate a healthcare system that didn't speak their language. Now a bilingual Physicians Assistant serving kids and families at Community Health Alliance, a federally qualified health center in Reno, Nevada, Marcos talks candidly about what changes when a provider can meet a patient in their own language and culture. There is less friction, more trust, and better follow-through on care. He also gets real about the gaps that still exist in pediatric mental health access, and why primary care providers are increasingly the ones holding the line for kids who can't get to a specialist. He is now training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry through UC Irvine's TNT program to build the capacity to address the mental health needs that primary care providers are being left to manage alone.
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Links to Solutions
Inaction is harm. Dr. Myers reframes the physician's oath around omission, not just action. A patient with no refrigerator prescribed insulin, a patient labeled non-compliant for missing appointments — these are failures of the care model, not the patient. Treating the condition without addressing the circumstance violates "do no harm" just as surely as a bad prescription.
Depression and diabetes run in both directions. Untreated depression sets the conditions for diabetes; unmanaged diabetes creates its own psychological entity — diabetes distress — that is clinically distinct from depression and requires different screening. Treating one while ignoring the other, she says, guarantees worse outcomes on both sides.
A 44 percent amputation rate demanded a new model. After a five-year chart review across three Bronx hospitals, Dr. Myers and a colleague co-founded a multidisciplinary limb preservation clinic — one visit, five specialties, including behavioral health. The clinic launched a year ago and is now beginning to collect outcome data.
Meet Our Guest
Dr Alyson Myers
Dr. Alyson K. Myers, MD is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Department of Medicine at Montefiore/Albert Einstein in the Bronx, and Allied Faculty with UCI's Train New Trainers Primary Care Fellowship. Triple board-certified in internal medicine, psychiatry, and endocrinology, she is one of a small number of physicians trained to treat metabolic and mental health conditions together — a clinical lens that shapes everything about how she practices.
Her research focuses on reducing the disproportionately high amputation rates among Black and Brown patients with diabetes in the Bronx. In 2022, she co-received a Center for Diabetes Translational Research grant to improve outcomes for patients with diabetic foot ulcers, and co-founded a multidisciplinary limb preservation clinic bringing endocrinology, infectious disease, vascular surgery, podiatry, and behavioral health into a single coordinated visit.
She serves on the American Board of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, is a co-lead for the Endocrine Society's ExCEL leadership program, and has published widely on diabetes disparities and technology.
Her research focuses on reducing the disproportionately high amputation rates among Black and Brown patients with diabetes in the Bronx. In 2022, she co-received a Center for Diabetes Translational Research grant to improve outcomes for patients with diabetic foot ulcers, and co-founded a multidisciplinary limb preservation clinic bringing endocrinology, infectious disease, vascular surgery, podiatry, and behavioral health into a single coordinated visit.
She serves on the American Board of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, is a co-lead for the Endocrine Society's ExCEL leadership program, and has published widely on diabetes disparities and technology.
Connect with Millie Christie
Dr. Emily Carter
Licensed Clinical Psychologist & Mental Health Advocate
How To Get Involved?
Dr. Emily Carter
Licensed Clinical Psychologist & Mental Health Advocate
How To Get Involved?
Dr. Emily Carter
Licensed Clinical Psychologist & Mental Health Advocate
How To Get Involved?
Dr. Emily Carter
Licensed Clinical Psychologist & Mental Health Advocate
How To Get Involved?
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