Making the Impossible Possible Psychiatrist

My Guest is Michael Broukhim

I am here to share the story of my journey that has brought me to this moment, a moment inspired to help others. I had an amazing childhood growing up in Orange County, really didn’t have any adversity growing up, maybe some bullying here and there, but overall it was great. Then I found out right before I started college that may dad had been fighting Multiple Myeloma, which is a form of blood cancer, and was diagnosed with it on my 10th birthday.

So for 8 years my parents had kept that diagnosis away from me, and when he was originally diagnosed, he was given a 2 year prognosis, so I was thankful that he outlived it for 6 years thus far.I was already interested in pursuing a career in medicine at that point and even started volunteering in a hospital a year later, and coincidentally my first rotation volunteering was on the oncology floor and that's where I really developed empathy for patients, especially since my father would come to the same Oncology floor I was volunteering at for medical emergencies

My father did end up passing away a few months after I started volunteering, around the time of his death, my desire to become a physician was further cemented. While on the wards I noticed that there never were any doctors around, and when I was talking with patients, I kept on being told that I would make a great doctor, and my guess as to why they had said that was because I was spending extra time with them to get to know who they were and see how I could help

From learning about how my father’s care was mismanaged by profit seeking motives, seeing the lack of interaction between patients and doctors in the hospital, and the dissatisfaction I learned doctors had with their field, I knew the health care system had significant issues of dysfunction and corruption. I wasn’t deterred by what I saw,I was a man on a mission, I hoped to make a significant difference in the way I would practice medicine and if I couldn't find a specific place to do that, I would create my own.

I ended up going to Touro CA, an Osteopathic Medical School in the Bay Area and I had thought I would go into Internal Medicine and specialize to become a GI doctor or an Oncologist, but then the mission changed, after 2 days on my Psychiatry rotation, I fell in love with it, I had the opportunity to really get to know patients, the stories patient’s shared were depressing and horrifying at times, but the changes that I saw patients make despite the suffering were inspiring and fascinating, this was not a boring field, but it required creativity in the way you would engage patients.

However what I noticed quickly about the field of Psychiatry is that the current story of mental health is one that if you ever get seen with mental or emotional difficulties, one will often get diagnosed with a chronic mental health condition which is often paired with being placed on psychiatric medications for the rest of your life, the mission became redefined.

I went to the University of Arizona for Psychiatry Residency, it was the only residency in the whole country, if not the world,that had an Integrative Psychiatry track, where I could learn holistic approaches to complement Conventional treatment. I really felt like I got some of the best training that prepared me for the success I have now. I moved to LA in the summer of 2020 to join HOPE Integrative Psychiatry, and at that point in my life I had thought my main professional goal that was most realistic was to be part of a clinic, and that owning one would be too difficult

Eight months later my boss gave me 49% of the business because he saw my potential in being an effective clinician and leader, at the time we had a total of 3 employees, overtime we had grown to 12 employees, had 2 offices and set up 2 trainings in our model with other practitioners in a holistic approach that helps really address the root causes that lead to a variety of mental health issues, help support people’s innate capacity to heal, and doing both with the transformative power of storytelling,

Now I continue to focus on ways to influence the mental health system to understand that most mental health conditions are not chronic but acute in nature, most people do not need long term medication use or therapy, and complete recovery is possible for the majority of people with mental health issues.

social & website------------------------
ig: mikebroukhim
website: https://hope-therapy-center.com/integrative-psychiatrist-dr-broukhim/

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