Melissa Lorang, MD: SFMS June 2012 Member of the Month June 18, 2012 SFMS Member, UCSF UCSF resident, Melissa Lorang 0 Melissa Lorang is a clinical fellow of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UCSF and a member of SFMS since 2011. She is a product of public education, graduating summa cum laude from UCLA with a degree in Biochemistry and completing her medical school and residency training at UCSD. Melissa has done research on adolescent substance use and is also involved with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry on its advocacy efforts. In her spare time, she loves traveling internationally, scuba diving, snow boarding, surfing, and camping hiking. I am a SFMS member because SFMS provides free membership to medical students, residents, and fellows. Now that I am a member, I know that SFMS offers great opportunities for networking, socializing with physicians of different specialties, and is a great outlet for my passion for advocacy. I think the most valuable SFMS member benefit is the opportunity to travel to Sacramento to participate in the California Medical Association's annual Lobby Day. I had already planned to go to Washington, DC for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent's advocacy day in May, so I jumped on the opportunity to go to Sacramento with the SFMS when I heard about the event. It was great to get some experience talking to legislators on a variety of medical topics and priority bills. The most important thing I learned in medical school/residency is taking care of the whole person matters so much. No matter what a patient may be presenting to a doctor for, there is always more going on. And if you can help them in a way that changes their life in a bigger way, it can be incredibly rewarding. That is part of why I went into psychiatry when I thought I would go into emergency medicine. What do you love about practicing psychiatry? I absolutely love psychiatry and especially child psychiatry. Having the honor of knowing someone inside and out, protecting their inner secrets and deepest fears, while helping them to improve themselves and improve their lives is magical. Children have so much promise and so many chances to catch up and go into a happier direction, so there is always hope. Being able to know a whole family and learn about the home environment can really allow for incredible change. My favorite San Francisco restaurant is Sunflower on Valencia in the Mission. On a resident's salary, I haven't been able to try many of the wonderful restaurants that exists in the the city. But I keep going back to Sunflower because of its great Vietnamese food (especially the pho), and it brings back wonderful memories of my trip to Vietnam. If I wasn’t a physician, I would like to try out a few jobs. I love my job so much and love doing psychotherapy that I would be happy to try being a psychologist, social worker, or marriage and family therapist. If I was talented enough and someone was willing to pay me, I would love to be a travel photographer. I love traveling and I love photography, especially wildlife and nature. Comments are closed.
