is Bridging the Gap with A New Standard in Psychiatric Care
Awards and Recognitions Dr. Douglas Hess is dual board-certified in General Psychiatry and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. He has been awarded the UND Dean’s Special Recognition award for outstanding volunteer faculty in April 2023 and the UND 8th Annual James E. Mitchell, MD Award for outstanding Co-Teacher of the Year for 2021-2022. Aubrey Hess, PA-C has been Board Certified by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) since 2010. Both providers also serve as Clinical Assistant Professors and have a passion for teaching.
36 | 2023 | THE ANNUAL PARENT GUIDE
In the complex and ever-growing field of mental health care, families often find themselves in a maze of waiting lists, impersonal interactions, and uncertainty regarding their next steps. Enter Dakota Adult and Pediatric Psychiatry—a community-driven clinic founded with a mission to fill these gaps and offer timely, compassionate, and comprehensive psychiatric care to those in need. Founders Dr. Douglas Hess, DO, and Aubrey Hess, PA-C aim to go above and beyond the standards of psychiatric care available to our community. "We wanted to offer timely and compassionate comprehensive care to the community as the wait times (still currently in some facilities) were over six months to one year. Our motivation
to provide care stems from a personal history of mental illness impacting each of our lives at young ages through close family members," they explained. Both have faced the heartbreaking reality of losing a loved one to suicide—Dr. Douglas Hess, his grandmother, and Aubrey, her uncle. Knowing the pain, challenges, struggles, barriers, and stigmas of mental health, they are hoping the impact of their care can help others before getting to this point. What further distinguishes Dakota Adult and Pediatric Psychiatry from other psychiatric care providers is their commitment to treating patients as individuals rather than statistics. "We treat them like our own family—brothers,
