Meet Our Keynote Speakers

Dr. Katherine Pannel is a Psychiatrist and medical director for Right Track Medical Group in Oxford, Mississippi. She is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Dr. Pannel received her undergraduate degree in Biology from Delta State University and received her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine from the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences. She completed her internships and residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Dr. Pannel is the District 3 Trustee and Chair of the Mississippi State Medical Association Board of Trustees. She is also the past President of the Northeast Medical Society. She is a current board member of the Southeast Delegation to the AMA and an Alternate Delegate to the AMA. Dr. Pannel is a member of the American Psychiatric Association and serves as Secretary to the Board of the MS Psychiatric Association as well as Chair of MPA’s Council on Legislation. Her volunteer service extends as well to the American Osteopathic Association where she serves as an Alternate Delegate to the AOA and serves as a Trustee member of the Mississippi Osteopathic Medical Association. She also serves on the Boards of the Mississippi Physician Health Monitoring Program and the Mississippi Rural Physician Scholars Program. Outside of organized medicine, Dr. Pannel volunteers her service as a member of the Board of Advisors for First Commercial Bank of Mississippi and is a member of the University of Mississippi Rose Society.

Dr. Pannel has received numerous awards, including being named the 2021 recipient of the Dr. James C. Waites Leadership award, a 2019 Mississippi Healthcare Hero recipient, MSMA Doctor of Distinction, MSMA Community Service Award, Mississippi Top 50 Under 40, the 2019 and 2020 Oxford, MS Best Psychiatrist, and the 2020 recipient of the One in a Million Award for her volunteer efforts to found Crocheting for a Cause – a Facebook group that makes Fidget Sleeves for Dementia patients across the state of Mississippi.

She also serves as a leading voice for addressing mental health and has penned numerous articles which have been published in KevinMD, the New York Times and Better Homes and Garden. She has also provided Congressional testimony in DC on the current mental health and fentanyl crisis. Additionally, Dr. Pannel has fielded local, state, and national media requests to address a myriad of mental health issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to her service on the MSMA COVID-19 and Telemedicine Task Forces, Dr. Pannel spearheaded an effort to raise awareness to the public to flatten the curve during the pandemic with the sales of self-designed #flattenthecurveMS buttons and t-shirts with the $2,400 proceeds donated to the MS Department of Health.

Dr. Pannel is a strong physician advocate and mental health voice at our state’s capitol and has been instrumental in championing legislation to add and fund a psychiatry scholarship for the Mississippi Rural Physician Scholarship Program as well as passage just this legislative session for the creation of an Alzheimer’s and related dementias caregivers’ program.

Dr. Pannel and her husband of 17 years, Richard Stephen Pannel, DO, along with their three children currently reside in Oxford, MS.