Legacy Health Endowment is constantly working to improve the health and wellbeing of local residents, from its medication program to diabetes care and the Person-Centered Care program that brings much-needed healthcare into the home. On Tuesday, LHE partnered with the Turlock Chamber of Commerce to present a seminar on mental health for the modern woman at the Grand Oak event center in Turlock.
In 2025 LHE partnered with Lavender, a telepsychiatry company led by psychiatric nurse practitioners. This partnership provides free online psychiatry and therapy for local residents who are 18 years or older. The co-founder of Lavender, Dr. Brighid Gannon, was the keynote speaker at Tuesday’s event. She shared tips for self-care and glimpses of her own mental health and entrepreneurial journey.
“I think for many high achieving women, the strategy so far has been achieve more, prove more, perfect more and you’ll be happy, but the data is telling a different story. Women are making more money than ever. We’re also in more positions of power. We have more advanced degrees than men, but we’re twice as likely as men to be depressed. Fifty-five percent of women feel burned out at work, whereas only 30% of men feel burnout at work. We are very overwhelmed by information about how to fix ourselves. You should eat more protein, you should lift weights, you should do the therapy, you should journal. And I think what we need now is not optimization strategies. I think we need to start feeling more connected to ourselves, because we are all extremely wise and we know what we need,” said Gannon.
She then led the audience into a brief visualization practice, prompting everyone to become more aware of their physical body, their intellect, their emotional self and their spiritual self.
Following the visualization exercise, local consultant Jessica Chang-Irish interviewed Gannon and asked questions submitted by the audience.
During this time, Gannon talked about the loneliness epidemic and the importance of social connections.
“We have a serious loneliness problem in our country, and what they discovered is that being lonely is as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day,” said Gannon, citing a 2023 report by the U.S. Surgeon General. “They also have discovered that virtual connection is not equivalent to in-person connection, which I know is ironic for me to say because I own a tele-psychiatry company, but there is something that happens biochemically when you were in a room with other human beings.”
Gannon also talked about how she came to start a telepsychiatry company — through the need to pay her bills. Before the pandemic, Gannon had another business where she would send psychiatric nurse practitioners into nursing homes to consult on cases. When New York State banned outside nurses coming into facilities during the pandemic, her and her employees were out of a job.
“So I started Lavender with my co-founder, not because we necessarily had a brilliant idea, but it was actually out of necessity. I had all these (nurse practitioners) that were out of work that needed employment. My business had shut down. I had not been traditionally employed in eight years, so I had no income to pay my bills. And we actually started Lavender as a way to employ my NPs so we could have work for them and work via telehealth. And I mean, obviously, there was a huge need during COVID, and people were constantly asking me for mental health referrals,” she said.
Gannon said she took the opportunity to also improve the experience patients have when seeking mental health care.
Legacy Health Endowment has made getting mental health services through Lavender free of charge for local residents. Lavender offers talk therapy, as well as medication management in one appointment. For more information, visit joinlavender.com.
Legacy Health will host another Women’s Health luncheon on March 31 at Greens on 10th in Modesto. The focus of that event will be menopause and peri-menopause. For more information, call 209-250-2315.