Culturally competent care | The path to psychiatry with Dr. Alexandra Canetti

Alexandra Canetti, MD, is a board-certified child and adolescent and adult psychiatrist with an interest in community psychiatry and family issues. She is affiliated with New York Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center and currently serves as the Program Medical Director of the Special Needs Clinic, where she treats the mental health needs of individuals and families affected by medical illness, and of the School-Based Mental Health Program. 

Dr. Canetti was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Dr. Canetti graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Science in pre-medicine from the University of Puerto Rico. She completed her medical degree at Universidad Central del Caribe in Puerto Rico, and her residency in adult psychiatry at Cabrini Medical Center. She graduated from her Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at St. Vincents Medical Center, where she was the chief fellow. 

She joined the training faculty at the Columbia HIV Training Project and AIDS Education Training Center of NY/NJ and has interest in culturally competent family-based care to children and youth with medical illnesses. 

Topics we cover:

• Why psychiatry?
• How to find mentors in psychiatry
• What do you wish you knew before med school?
• The process of figuring out her psychiatric specialty
• What does your job at NYP look like? - A typical "patient journey" - start to finish
• Why would a patient get referred to psychiatry over psychology or social work?
• Patient populations and treatment modalities - DBT with bilingual families & cultural sensitivity
• Loans & financial aspects of medical training
• What does training in psychiatry actually look like?
• What would you change about psychiatry if you could?
• Skills that make you an effective psychiatrist
• Why did you not like private practice?
• Why did you decide to focus more on psychopharmacology and med management than on therapy?
• When do you burnout the most? How do you deal with it?
• Being the medical director of two clinics at Columbia NYP
• If people want to learn more about child psychiatry, how should they go about it? 
• The difference between working with children and adults
• What is one skill, quality, or general factor that has served you no matter where you went in life? 

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Music by: Adam Fine