Radio doctor takes last call

BANGOR – On Thursday, for the last time, Dr. Linda Austin asked Maine Public Radio listeners, “What’s on your mind?”

Austin, whose nationally syndicated mental health call-in show, “What’s On Your Mind?”, has aired live from MPR’s Bangor studios since 2001, is returning to South Carolina with her husband in the fall. She decided to pull the plug on the popular show, which aired each Thursday at 1 p.m., in order to have time to prepare for the move.

“I feel like I want to go out on a high note,” Austin said minutes before she went on air Thursday, explaining her decision to end the show months before her departure from Maine.

Typically, Austin, a psychiatrist with a practice in Bangor, acts as moderator for a guest author or specialist, guiding callers and their questions, and asking her own when the calls slow down.

This week’s show was dominated by callers wishing Austin well and thanking her for the education on various mental-health issues, and tips about worthwhile books in the sea of self-help literature.

The show has been carried on stations in Oregon, California, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Maryland and Manitoba, Canada.

Austin, 51, launched the show in South Carolina, where she had been a psychiatry professor and dean of the School of Public Education at the Medical University of South Carolina. The show aired for a decade before she moved to Maine.

Austin considered reconstituting the show in South Carolina, but decided against it. She praised Maine Public Radio for its support for the show, and her producer, Vicki Blanchette.

“Everything has clicked so well,” she said. MPR is “a nationally recognized, first-class operation,” with top-notch facilities.

Austin is proud of the role the show has had in Mainers’ lives – Maine is the only state where the program is aired live – and its impact on other listeners around the country.

“What the show does to those who listen regularly is raise sensitivity to a whole range of human issues,” she said, as well as expose listeners to authors and experts.

Listeners, who have numbered about 18,000 each week in Maine, get to “hear slices of human life” they normally would not be privy to, she said.

Rather than function as a kind of freak show – the way Jerry Springer’s TV show did – Austin believes her program raised compassion for callers, and the problems they represented, such as teenage girls who have been bullied, girls with weight problems, or people recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Topics also included love, success, depression and sexuality.

“What’s On Your Mind?” was funded through grants, which covered the cost of phones, satellite uplinks and electricity costs, though MPR contributed in-kind to support the show.

Blanchette’s salary and Austin’s time were also covered through grants.

Blanchette said the show had just landed a major grant from the Langeloth Foundation that would have become available July 1.

“We’re going to give it back,” she said.

Blanchette, whom Austin said contributed greatly to the success of “What’s On Your Mind?”, said continuing it with a replacement host was not practically possible. “It’s so personality-driven,” she said, tipping her hat to Austin, who seemed to connect with callers through her academic, yet upbeat and compassionate manner.

MPR spokeswoman Rhonda Morin says the network was sorry to see Austin leave.

“We had a lot of favorable feedback,” she said. There are no plans to replace Austin or to create a similar program. The hour will be filled with various public affairs shows, Morin said.

Tom Groening can be reached at 236-3575 and groening@midcoast.com.