Torie Sepah is a psychiatrist and can be reached at her self-titled site, Torie Sepah, MD, on X @toriesepahmd, and on Instagram @toriesepahmd. She is also founder, Physician to Physician: Healing the Practice of Medicine.
Dr. Sepah straddles two worlds: primary care and psychiatry. She completed her internship in family medicine at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, then went on to complete a psychiatry residency at LAC+USC Medical Center.
She has worked extensively in correctional medicine, including serving as the chief psychiatrist at the California Institution for Women. She was the first female chief psychiatrist at that prison and, at the time, one of only 12 in the state.
Since 2018, Dr. Sepah has been a community psychiatrist once again. A portion of her time is spent seeing HIV patients as part of an integrated HIV care clinic. The rest, she runs her own interventional psychiatry clinic, which focuses on deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (dTMS) but also reproductive psychiatry, patients with neuropsychiatric disorders, and early diagnosis patients with schizophrenia.
She also writes about her experience as a physician, health care, and her own struggles to make sense of it all, while providing mentorship and support to her colleagues through an online forum.
She has two goals: first, for psychiatry to co-exist with the medical specialties where it belongs, so that patients can finally feel "OK" getting help. Second, she hopes the practice of medicine can maintain the standards that truly place patients first, and that doctors do not become extinct.
Dr. Sepah is an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Prior to becoming a physician, she was a journalist and assistant editor of Ms. Magazine, writing the health column which prompted her interest in medicine.
After watching most of the five-plus hours of the December 5th congressional hearing on the state of antisemitism at three of the U.S.’ top universities – Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and MIT – I’ve concluded that unfortunately, the sound bites replayed in the media are not one-liners taken out of context, but spot-on summations.
As my husband and I prepare for our oldest son to reach a tremendous milestone in less …
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Safety on campus, except for Jews: a parent and psychiatrist’s perspective
It took about ten minutes of carefully shifting the controls on the hospital bed, placing pillows in the right spaces to prop me up to an angle that resembles “sitting”—all done delicately so as to not increase the pain level I was already in. All of this was for a specific purpose; like all post-op patients, it was time to advance my diet; it was time for my first …
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How “self-care” is elusive until there is no choice
When we hear or chant, “Black Lives Matter,” what all does this refer to? Is it the gruesome police brutality in the death of George Floyd? Or the murder of Ahmaud Arbery? Absolutely. But what else should it refer to? We know that Black lives aren’t equal in the face of COVID-19. As physicians, have we considered all the ways that Black lives may matter less in health care despite …
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It takes more than marching to make Black lives matter in health care
Let me start by saying that I am a diplomate (i.e., “board-certified”) by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. I was completely in agreement that to display competence in my specialty after four years of residency, I should pass the oral and written exams required by the ABPN, further to prove I have maintained my skills, I have always found it …
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How MOC is contributing to the demise of physicians
The other night, while I was getting out of my car, my oldest son, standing on the porch, excitedly yelled out, “Mom, look at this lego structure I made!”
I couldn’t see it, but I could tell how happy he was to show it to me. “It looks neat from here. Let me get closer.”
My husband appeared, knowing how tired I was, “Mom worked a long day. Why don’t you let …
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When physicians are so emotionally drained, they have nothing left for their families
Today was like no other day. It was our first day together.
Me and my “virtual” scribe — an actual person who seems to “virtually” to exist inside of a Jabra speaker on my desk and so subtlety that I forgot to mute a few times when not seeing patients. The “man” in the Jabra speaker now knows just how long of an appointment I need for my hair, and that …
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Virtual scribes are game-changers for physicians
Our profession is in crisis, but “human rights violations” and “moral injury” are inaccurate terms to use.
It may be surprising to some that I am writing this piece as I am viewed as a staunch physician advocate. In 2017, I was stunned after a beloved classmate from medical school took his life. I felt I had let him down by missing signs of distress — dismissing them because he was …
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The problem with calling physician burnout a human rights violation or a moral injury
Language matters. The use of the word “provider” may seem innocuous, but it is significant both for patients and physicians.
For patients, it has been perhaps the most pronounced step — if not leap — away from transparency. (Who is who? Nurse, doctor, chiropractor, podiatrist, psychologist? Doesn’t matter — everyone is a “provider.”)
For physicians, the ramifications have been two-fold. One on hand, the use of the word is a demotion by …
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Language matters: the not-so-innocuous provider effect
A swimming pool. Most of a Tesla. Not nearly enough to have your kid swapped out during their sham SAT test. Nor would an ICU bill for a stay that resulted in survival — $48,744 is the cost of that. What costs an alarming amount more is the bill the US Government pays annually on erectile dysfunction medications for servicemen — a whopping $8.7 million according to a 2016 Rand …
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$34,000 to save mothers and their children from postpartum depression
A male physician — one who sits on multiple committees at a large hospital in Dallas — was recently quoted in the Dallas Medical Journal, that female physicians earn less, and they “choose to or they simply don’t want to be rushed.” Adding, “most of the time, their priority is something else … family, social, whatever.”
I should be astounded that a colleague, in 2018, who appears to be about my …
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Female physicians and the fiberglass ceiling
I’ve thought a great deal about what to say, if anything, about the two suicides recently of two people who were not merely celebrities in the TMZ sense, but people who represented creativity — perhaps in a way that seemed tangible to the rest of us — and seem to have become celebrities almost by happenstance.
Suicide is not an unfamiliar or difficult topic for me. After all, I am someone …
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It’s time to create the safety net by normalizing psychiatric care
Recently, a form showed up on my desk to sign, approval for something or other. Not uncommon, given my role at the time as a chief psychiatrist, I signed dozens of such letters, memos, or forms, drafted by an administrative assistant. I signed so many; I never looked at the last line — at how my name had been typed out. Just once my eyes wandered to the end and …
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How psychiatrists became lesser physicians
I hear many comments and genuine inquiries about being a physician in a prison. They’re all well-meaning yet hint at how little is known about this world on the “inside” and those who inhabit it.
I take my time answering questions about the complexities of practicing behind bars, yet also highlight that despite the challenges, it’s difficult to see myself working anywhere else.
The “why” is tough to answer. I’m not a …
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What it’s like to practice medicine behind bars
