Dr. Camilla Lyons, MD, MPH, FAPA

Specialty: Psychiatry

Sub-Specialties: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Forensic Psychiatry

Background

Dr. Camilla Lyons is a board certified child, adolescent, adult, and forensic psychiatrist. Dr. Lyons attended Yale University undergrad where she earned her B.A. She then attended medical school at Tulane University where she earned her MD and MPH degrees. After graduating medical school, Dr. Lyons completed her adult psychiatry residency at the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program. She also completed her psychiatry residency. at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Massachusetts Mental Health Center. Subsequently, Dr. Lyons completed her child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center, and the University Hospital of Cornell. She also completed her forensic psychiatry fellowship at the New York- Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center.

Dr. Lyons is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Psychiatry in 2008, in which she was re-certified in 2018, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2009, in which she was re-certified in 2019, and Forensic Psychiatry in 2011.

Dr. Lyons' faculty appointment after medical school included being a clinical assistant professor in the departments of psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine. She is also a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

In practice, Dr Lyons is a child, adolescent, adult and forensic psychiatrist with offices in Greenwich, CT and Manhattan. The services provided in Dr. Lyons practices include diagnostic evaluation, consultation, psychotherapy, psychopharmacology. She is also available to conduct forensic evaluations.

More About Psychiatry

Psychiatry is "a branch of medicine focused on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders. Psychiatrists are qualified to asses both the mental and physical aspects of psychological problems."

More About Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

A child and adolescent psychiatrists is "a doctor who specializes in the diagnosis and the treatment of disorders of thinking feeling, and/or behavior affecting children, adolescents, and their families. A child and adolescent psychiatrist offers families comprehensive care, is a physician and follows the medical traditions of professional ethics. Traditional child and adolescent psychiatric training requires four years of medical school, at least three years of approved residency training in medicine, neurology and general psychiatry with adults, and two years of training in psychiatric work with children, adolescents, and their families in an accredited residency in child and adolescent psychiatry."

More About Forensic Psychiatry

"The branch of psychiatry that deals with issues arising in the interface between psychiatry that deals with issues arising in the interface between psychiatry and the law, and with the flow of mentally disordered offenders along a continuum of social systems."

Q&A Interview

What experiences in your personal and professional life inspired your career in the medical field?

"I would say that I went to college thinking I wanted to study science, but not necessarily knowing I wanted to go to medical school, and really what kinda got me interested is that I ended up working as a college student as a volunteer at a juvenile detention center. I started reading a New York Times article, a front page article, about boys in detention in Louisiana, and all of the mental health problems that they had, how underserved boys were in that system, and how they really had mental illness from before they got involved in the legal system, but that they weren’t really identified or treated until later on. Even so, when they were in the system it at least got identified I think, but there wasn’t a lot of treatment going on. That kind of got me interested in mental health in particular and psychiatry. Anyway I ended up going to medical school and I also thought about doing adolescent medicine, but during my medical school experience I was so fascinated by psychiatry, so it was pretty easy to pick that as my specialty."

What sort of challenges did you face as a woman (of color) pursuing a career in the medical field?

"There were a lot, but things are getting better now I think. I had some men along the way who treated me in stereotypical ways, and I was the person in the class, for example in medical school I kind of got, I don’t know if up in arms is the right word, but it might be, due some of their behavior. I learned about the appropriate ways to complain in a professional manner. I did that, but then it turns out that sometimes those don’t offer very satisfying outcomes anyway, so I’m very thankful that your generation seems to be taking it to the next level, and really sort of demanding better treatment."

What advice would you give to young (minority) girls who are interested in pursuing a career in the medical field?

"I would encourage them. I think it’s exciting when people want to [pursue a career in the medical field]. Just like all careers it has its ups and downs, so you have to be prepared for things you might not expect. But like I said, I feel like that happens in life in general, and in any career. I would say to obviously study the sciences, and there is a lot of it to study. I would say in terms of encouraging them, if it’s something you enjoy, if that curiosity really pulls you in, then I would say follow that. That’s the kind of thing that keeps you going when you’ve got lots of tests to study for, and you can remember that it’s a really cool thing to study. That’s what I would tell people to remember."

Given the inherent challenges and stress involved with medical school, residency and practicing medicine, how do you manage and cope with the ups and downs of your career path?

"The usual things I think tend to lend themselves to mental well being such as having a strong support system, friends and family, and still seeing those people and spending time with them. One is often in the hospital during training, but to then really take the time when your not in the hospital to schedule time when your not going to be working to spend time with your friends and family, that’s really important; then other things like trying to eat healthy, and have a regular life outside of this sometimes all consuming training, such as exercising and doing fun things. In medical school we had something Students Against Right Brain Atrophy which was a group called SARBA. It was a group that basically scheduled activities for making art or creating art in some kind of way, so maintaining a creative practice, I actually think that is really important.

How did COVID-19 cause challenges with patient care in your field of medicine?

I think the field of mental health was really lucky that we had zoom and whatever other video conferencing tools to still be able to see our patients, so that is very lucky. My patients got seen regularly. There wasn’t really an interruption in care because we were able to meet, video conference, but also I worked at a residential treatment center also, so I went in person so we had to make sure to wear our masks, and people, who are my bosses, were the ones who managed all the details about how to keep people safe so that was lucky. That’s the logistics, and I would say that in terms of COVID-19 impacting my work, it’s a lot of people who have really been stressed out by COVID-19 so it’s challenged our lives. We’ve all had to adapt and do things differently, and some people have had more of that than others, and sometimes that has caused a lot of stress for people, so it has taken a toll on people’s mental health. In a way I have a lot more patients coming to me for help, which is good that they’re getting treatment."

What more information could you share about your specialty?

"Psychiatry is a very interesting field. It can be a challenging field. Usually when someone goes to see a psychiatrist, they are not in the best mood. They might be really run down. Sometimes psychiatrists see people when they are down so they are sometimes not very nice to us, but that happens in all fields of medicine, so that’s kind of a challenge of psychiatry. You have to be able to accept that it’s not personal and people might say things to you and you have got to not get upset about it because you have to hang in there with your patient because you’re really there to help them and not to get distracted by somethings they might say to you. That‘s one thing which maybe people don't think about, but it’s an interesting facet of psychiatry. It’s such a privilege to practice psychiatry because people really share so much of their lives with you, and so I oftentimes just feel really in awe of what people go through and what they adapt to and are able to survive. People are so resilient, and so you really see, even though sometimes you see them at their worst, you really see all of their strengths, so that can be a very rewarding aspect of psychiatry."

What was your most memorable case/experience?

"Of course the ones that are the scariest come to mind first, but I guess some of the most memorable are when people have told me they have thanked me and when I have seen people get a lot better. Those are some of the most salient memories, and then there’s some memorable ones for their shock value. I used to work in a psychiatric emergency room in New York City, and I’ve had patients chase me, so that can be very memorable, but not necessarily something I wish to remember."

What would you be if you weren’t a doctor?

"A gardener, because that is one of the things that I do to take care of myself, or kind of unplug when I’m not at work. I am super passionate about my garden, and I think that if I weren't a doctor I would like to be a gardener or a professional horticulturist."

What is your proudest moment as a doctor?

"There’s been a lot of moments in being a doctor that are quite humbling, so thinking of something that I’m proud of is something different. There is one particular patient who comes to mind, who, like I said, her symptoms got a lot better, her life got a lot better, she was a lot happier, and recently she moved and we had a conversation about how much progress she had made, and I felt very proud to have been part of that with her."

Sources: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/what-is-psychiatry-menu#:~:text=Psychiatry%20is%20the%20branch%20of,health%2C%20including%20substance%20use%20disorders.

https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/The-Child-And-Adolescent-Psychiatrist-000.aspx

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16946941/#:~:text=Forensic%20psychiatry%20is%20the%20branch,a%20continuum%20of%20social%20systems.