Lauren Mahoney, M.D., brings a compassionate, team-based approach to neuropsychiatric care at PMDC
Lauren Mahoney, M.D., did not expect her path through medicine to lead here.
She entered medical school planning to become an oncologist. Later, during neurology training, she found herself increasingly drawn to the behavioral and emotional side of neurological disease. The more time she spent with patients, the more she realized the symptoms affecting quality of life were often not limited to movement, memory or cognition alone.
“I started to realize that the aspect of neurology that I felt most passionate about was the behavioral and mental health aspect of it,” Mahoney says. “That’s when I switched over to psychiatry.”
Today, Mahoney serves as a neuropsychiatrist at the VCU Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders Center (PMDC), where she works with patients navigating Parkinson’s disease and related neurological conditions. Her role focuses on the overlap between neurology and psychiatry. Day to day, she helps patients manage conditions that can include depression, anxiety, psychosis, grief and behavioral changes that can emerge alongside neurological disease.
For many families, Mahoney says, those symptoms can become some of the hardest parts of the diagnosis itself.
“A lot of times the psychiatric issues in diseases like Parkinson’s are more distressing to patients than the motor symptoms and can reduce quality of life,” Mahoney says.
Some patients come to Mahoney after years of managing mental health conditions. Others have never spoken with a psychiatrist before. Many arrive overwhelmed, trying to process difficult diagnoses while adjusting to changes that no longer make them feel like themselves.
“Their family members and friends sometimes don’t understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, and neither do they,” Mahoney says.
Inside the PMDC, Mahoney works alongside neurologists, psychologists and rehabilitation specialists in a multidisciplinary environment designed to coordinate care around the full patient experience. Seeing patients both in person and virtually, she collaborates with providers throughout the day to discuss cases and adjust treatment plans. Initial appointments can last 90 minutes or longer as Mahoney spends time getting to know patients and caregivers.
That wraparound model also allows treatment plans to remain individualized. For example, some patients benefit from medication management. Others need therapy, education or simply a safe place to process fear and uncertainty.
She pauses at one point while describing what success looks like in her role.
“I think success is just helping with quality of life, helping patients feel better, helping them feel like they have a space to open up and be able to talk about these things,” Mahoney says. She adds that providing education can often restore a patient’s sense of control. “I want them to also understand what’s going on with them, because a lot of times they don’t, and it’s scary. If I can help with that, it means a lot.”
The emotional weight of that work is part of what continues drawing her to the field.
Supporting patients through chronic and life-altering neurological illness now connects many of the interests that first led her toward medicine years ago. The destination was unexpected, but for Mahoney, it ultimately feels like the right one.
“I didn’t know I’d be here when I first started,” she says. “But glad I found it.”