LinkedIn Presents.

I'm Maura Aronsmeli, and this is the Anxious Achiever, the show that looks at the intersection

of mental health and work, and how we can all do both better.

Sometimes you set out to have a conversation with someone as an interviewer and you think

you kind of know what to expect. And then sometimes an interview turns into something

else entirely. I wanted to interview today's guest because of her trend-setting work on

mental health on behalf of America's fourth largest company, CBS Health. I wanted her to be our

guide as we thought about the health care ecosystem and why it's so broken in providing mental health to so many.

A lot of companies and individuals are trying hard to write the wrongs, to step in for a system that is broken and improve the situation for the many people who are suffering.

Kara McNulty is president of behavioral

health and EAP at CVS Health. She is a population scientist. But Kara and I ended up diving into

our personal mental health stories, which happened when we were pregnant. Maternal mental health

is crucial, but it's still really hard to talk about. And I thank

Kara for her story and invite you to listen. Here's our conversation.

So Kara, you're a population scientist. Tell us what that is and why you chose to become one.

No more, it's interesting. I always thought that I was going to go to medical school and be a pediatrician.

And I was doing all my work to go to medical school, and my father was diagnosed with a very rare,

rare form of cancer, of leukemia. And at the time, he was one of four in the United States that

had this rare form of leukemia. Oh, my God. And long story short, he had an unbelievable oncologist

at the University of Minnesota. And so he was in the hospital for long, extended periods.

And I ended up shadowing his oncologist. And at the end of this two-week period, his oncologist

asked to speak with my dad and I, my dad, in his hospital bed,

...