Brought to you by the Depression Is Real Coalition, The Down & Up Show is dedicated to the reality of depression. Our hosts will talk with some of the world's top experts on depression, as well as people who have been impacted by this illness. The reality of depression is that it is a debilitating and potentially deadly medical condition that affects more than 15 million Americans every year. The other reality of depression is that there is hope.

Paula J. Clayton, MD

Dr. Paula Clayton joined the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) as their medical director in 2006. Her responsibilities include overseeing AFSP's scientific council and facilitating the development and implementation of numerous programs in suicide prevention research and education. She will also supervise the staff assigned to the research and education department, serve on the organization's management team, be a member of the Board of Directors and sit on their Executive Committee.

Dr. Clayton has been a researcher and educator in academic psychiatry for more than forty years. In 1960, she graduated from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. She completed her residency in psychiatry at Washington University and then joined the faculty there from 1965 to 1980. She was then recruited to the University of Minnesota School of Medicine where she was Professor and Head of the Department of Psychiatry for twenty years. Most recently, she was a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine where she taught at the psychiatric outpatient clinic for five years. She has published four books, written more than 150 papers and 20 book chapters.

In addition to her research expertise and vast experience in education, Dr. Clayton is also a member of several editorial boards, psychiatric societies, and on other governmental and nongovernmental committees. She has received numerous awards during her career including, but not limited to, the Alumni Athena Award in 1985 from the University of Michigan as the Outstanding Woman Alumna of the Year, and the First Aphrodite Jannapaula Hofsommer Award from Washington University in 1993. As a pioneering psychiatrist, she was the first woman chair of a department of psychiatry in the country and first woman chair at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine.