Post Author: Torie S. Sepah, MD
Torie Sepah is a board-certified psychiatrist specializing in interventional psychiatry. She is the founder and medical director of Pasadena Neuropsychiatry & TMS Center, a multidisciplinary clinic that provides novel, evidence-based treatments—including TMS, esketamine (Spravato), and medication-assisted treatment (MAT)—for individuals with treatment-resistant depression, OCD, schizophrenia, dementia, and for those in the peripartum and perimenopausal stages.
Dr. Sepah earned her B.A. in political science from UCLA and began her career as a journalist before entering medicine. She earned her M.D. from Tulane University, where she was inducted as a lifetime member of the Arnold P. Gold Humanism in Medicine Honor Society. She completed her internship in family medicine at Kaiser Permanente, Los Angeles, and her psychiatry residency (PGY2–4) at LAC+USC Medical Center, where she served as chief resident.
With extensive experience in correctional psychiatry at the county, state, and federal levels, Dr. Sepah made history as the first female chief psychiatrist at the California Institution for Women (CDCR), where she helped pioneer one of the nation’s first MAT programs behind bars.
A dedicated advocate for equitable health care, Dr. Sepah co-founded Physician to Physician: Healing the Practice of Medicine and serves on various professional committees. She has been featured as a guest on podcasts such as Primary Care Cures, ParaDocs, Physicians at Risk, and Conversations with Shem, and has appeared on The Dr. Phil Show, NPR, Not Carol, Soft White Underbelly, and the docuseries Champions of Social Justice.
Since 2017, Dr. Sepah has served as an adjunct professor at Western University of Health Sciences and was the first psychiatry clerkship director at CDCR’s CIW facility. She currently teaches PGY2–3 PIH family medicine residents and delivers grand rounds at hospitals on topics including emergency psychiatry and physician burnout.
Connect with Dr. Sepah on Instagram at @toriesepahmd or visit her website at www.toriesepahmd.com.
Torie Sepah is a board-certified psychiatrist specializing in interventional psychiatry. She is the founder and medical director of Pasadena Neuropsychiatry & TMS Center, a multidisciplinary clinic that provides novel, evidence-based treatments—including TMS, esketamine (Spravato), and medication-assisted treatment (MAT)—for individuals with treatment-resistant depression, OCD, schizophrenia, dementia, and for those in the peripartum and perimenopausal stages.
Dr. Sepah earned her B.A. in political science from UCLA and began her career as a journalist before entering medicine. She earned her M.D. from Tulane University, where she was inducted as a lifetime member of the Arnold P. Gold Humanism in Medicine Honor Society. She completed her internship in family medicine at Kaiser Permanente, Los Angeles, and her psychiatry residency (PGY2–4) at LAC+USC Medical Center, where she served as chief resident.
With extensive experience in correctional psychiatry at the county, state, and federal levels, Dr. Sepah made history as the first female chief psychiatrist at the California Institution for Women (CDCR), where she helped pioneer one of the nation's first MAT programs behind bars.
A dedicated advocate for equitable health care, Dr. Sepah co-founded Physician to Physician: Healing the Practice of Medicine and serves on various professional committees. She has been featured as a guest on podcasts such as Primary Care Cures, ParaDocs, Physicians at Risk, and Conversations with Shem, and has appeared on The Dr. Phil Show, NPR, Not Carol, Soft White Underbelly, and the docuseries Champions of Social Justice.
Since 2017, Dr. Sepah has served as an adjunct professor at Western University of Health Sciences and was the first psychiatry clerkship director at CDCR's CIW facility. She currently teaches PGY2–3 PIH family medicine residents and delivers grand rounds at hospitals on topics including emergency psychiatry and physician burnout.
Connect with Dr. Sepah on Instagram at @toriesepahmd or visit her website at www.toriesepahmd.com.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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