As 2024 begins, we are honored to highlight the newest Clinical Supervisor with the Regional Mental Health Training Program, Ana Zdravkovic, PsyD (she/hers). Dr. Zdravkovic initially came to Kaiser in 2012 as a postdoctoral resident in Walnut Creek after completing a Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro and a psychology residency at University of Louisville Norton Children’s Hospital. She continued her work with Kaiser Walnut Creek on the Child and Family team before shifting into case management for adolescent with autism spectrum disorder and severe and persistent mental illness in 2015. During this same time, Dr. Zdravkovic signed on as a clinical supervisor to doctoral psychology trainees in the Mental Health Training Program. Dr. Zdravkovic assumed the role of Psychology Post-Doctoral Training Director in Walnut Creek in 2018.
During her work with training, Dr. Zdravkovic has found that collaborating with trainees to meet their professional goals during their training year, supporting supervisors to create great working relationships with trainees, and helping managers to support the larger atmosphere surrounding trainees has been especially meaningful. She has been most proud of the recent program changes made in Walnut Creek that allow Post-Doctoral Residents to focus their training on a specialization, leading to a more fulfilling year for residents while also meeting the clinical needs of specific patient populations. For the 2023-2024 training year she has helped foster two new Post-Doctoral Resident positions: one for the trauma specialization on the adult team and another for Pediatric Health Psychology, both of which have garnered a sizeable number of applicants.
Dr. Zdrakovic also has a strong interest in conducting mental health research and working with trainees on developing research interests and skills. Her graduate research examined how parent and child factors predict negative cognitive styles and clinical traits through longitudinal data. Dr Zdrakovic has recently joined A-PRIME– a group committed to fostering mental health and addiction research within TPMG—as a steering committee member. She is also mobilizing the first ever MHTP trainee research lab, in collaboration with MHTP data scientist Dr. Galina Kovaleva, which will begin in the 2024/2025 training year. Dr.Zdravkovic’s current research interests include evaluating evidence-based practices in outpatient therapy settings and improving treatment adherence for the mild to moderate psychiatric population.
In her time away from Kaiser, Dr. Zdravkovic loves spending time outside with her three young children, reading, exploring a new museum, taking a day trip with her husband, or simply pausing to take in a sunset. The Regional Mental Health Training Team is lucky to have her on board full time as their newest Clinical Supervisor and we all look forward to the great work she will continue to do as we move into 2024!
Contributed by Chelsea Vilinskas, PsyD
