Our Members

Joanna Kountanis is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and the Director for Quality Improvement and Safety for Obstetric Anesthesiology. She completed her anesthesiology residency from University of Michigan in 2008 and an obstetric anesthesiology fellowship in 2009. She has remained at Michigan Medicine as faculty since that time. Throughout the years she has developed a strong interest and commitment to bringing awareness of patient psychiatric illness and how it impacts numerous aspects of their medical care. She was the primary investigator and has collaborated with researchers from family medicine, obstetrics, psychiatry and social work on a study which enrolled 600 pregnant patients in efforts to identify risk factors during the birth experience which may increase the likelihood of developing postpartum depression or posttraumatic stress disorder. Part of this work was presented at the 2019 Society of Obstetrics and Perinatalogy annual meeting's Best Paper Competition and recieved second place. Future research goals include identifying patients that are high risk for a psychological sequelae early in their postoperative course as well as to validate interventions that improve outcomes but remain economical and feasible in our current health care climate.