Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Emily Wu.
Hi Dr. Wu, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am a Double Board-certified Psychiatrist in Adult Psychiatry and Child/Adolescent Psychiatry. I completed a two-year advanced fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital/McLean Hospital through Harvard Medical School. I finished my Adult Psychiatry residency at Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program. I obtained my medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine. I earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Texas A&M University, graduating summa cum laude.
After training, I have worked as a staff psychiatrist at Menninger Clinic and a Clinical Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. Currently, I have opened my own Psychiatry private practice in the greater Houston area, where I provide both in-person and telepsychiatry services for adult and child populations.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I was a 1.5 generation immigrant from China. I came to the United States with my family when I was a high school teenager. Houston has been my hometown ever since my family moved to the US. While living in an underprivileged Chinese community during our early immigration year, I saw many Chinese immigrant families suffer from tremendous emotional distress during their early adjustment in the United States. However, I rarely knew any Chinese families who reached out to local mental health services for counseling or treatment. Mental illness has always been taboo within Chinese culture. Despite the acknowledgment of their emotional distress, the willingness to report the problems and express them publicly is usually low because of the shame and stigma associated with psychological difficulties.
Due to my early childhood experiences, my academic interest throughout my medical career is to improve access to mental health care among the ethnical/racial minorities by implementing culture-sensitive and user-friendly digital psychiatry interventions. I thrive to contribute to this emerging field of psychiatry by integrating culture and technology components into the current practice of psychiatry.
Additionally, I am grateful for my family, friends, and mentors who have supported me throughout my rigorous medical training.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
During my residency training, I have become interested in exploring sociocultural barriers that could hinder minority families from utilizing mental health services. One of my research projects was to study the perception of child mental illness among Chinese immigrant parents. The findings suggest that Chinese parents tend to somaticize depression, anxiety, or even psychosis symptoms of youth. Therefore, they prefer to seek help from the community and PCP’s first rather than the psychiatrists. In addition, many Chinese American or immigrant parents do not know how to obtain psychiatric services for their children.
How can mental health providers develop more culture-oriented, cost-effective, and accessible interventions for the diverse minority populations? With the potential increase in the use of smartphone apps as a mental health tool, I became interested in studying the feasibility and efficacy of introducing mental health themed mobile technology to the minority communities. One of my literature review manuscripts published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) in 2016 was to evaluate the clinical evidence of using smartphone apps as an intervention for adolescent depression. Although the data suggested a high rate of usage of smartphone apps and interest of smartphone-themed depression therapy among the adolescents, the comprehensive literature search revealed that there were few apps available for adolescent depression treatment. This further enhanced my interest in developing mobile apps to address the specific mental health needs for youth and their parents.
I became a scholar of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Minority Fellowship Program from the year of 2017 to 2019. There, I received the research grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). I used the research grant to develop a virtual-guided loving-kindness mindfulness smartphone application, which aimed at providing a culturally-oriented tool to encourage mental health service engagement among minority patients.
Additionally, I have been an active advocate for public mental health in both regional and national levels. During my residency training, Dr. Emily Wu was elected as the American Medical Association (AMA) Resident-Fellow Delegate via Massachusetts Medical Society. She was accepted as a distinguished Fellow in the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) SAMHSA Minority Fellowship. During my tenure as an APA fellow, I was elected as the Chair for the APA Minority Fellowship Program and was appointed to the APA Board of Trustee as a non-voting member. I also served as a member of the APA Council for Minority Mental Health/Health Disparity for two years.
I have presented nationally and internationally on a range of cross-cultural psychiatry topics, including the cultural shaping of depression, psychiatry in the digital age, parenting challenges in Chinese immigrant families, utilizing a culturally relevant smartphone app to increase engagement in depression care among Chinese Americans, depression and suicide among Chinese international students. I have served as an international consultant to facilitate the development of adolescent residential treatment programs in a psychiatric hospital in China.
Clinically, at my current psychiatry private practice, I provide both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy for children, adolescents, and adults. I thrive to provide culturally-sensitive psychiatric diagnosis and treatment intervention for each individual. Areas of interest in my clinic practice include a wide range of diagnoses- ADHD, anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosis, PTSD, high function Autism, and many others. I also treat individuals wishing to address family issues, marital discord, successful transition through developmental stages of adulthood, and bereavement.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
The COVID-19 pandemic is not only a medical phenomenon, but also caused significant mental health impact on the individuals and society.
Quarantine and self-isolation have led to increased stress, anxiety, frustration, and uncertainty in the community. Children, elderly, and front-line health workers are the most vulnerable populations and are most likely to suffer the negative mental health impact from the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, I think it is so important to increase the public awareness of mental wellbeing during the pandemic. In my private practice, I offer telepsychiatry services for psychiatric evaluation, medication management, and individual therapy interventions across the state of Texas, in order to increase access to care.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@emilywumd.com
- Website: www.emilywumd.com
- Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/psychiatrists/emily-y-wu-sugar-land-tx/878381
