Michael Ocana, MD is the Program Medical Director for the Adolescent Psychiatric Unit at Kelowna General Hospital. (This is an 8 bed regional unit for youth (ages 12-18) serving the Interior Region of British Columbia, an area of 5500 km2 with a population of 750 000. Youth usually remain in the hospitals for admissions of 3-4 weeks and are typically suffering from severe mental health issues not responding to treatment in their local communities.)
Dr. Ocana also consults to youth in crisis at Kelowna General Hospital in the Emergency Room, the paediatric ward, and sees youth in crisis through an urgent response program to prevent hospital admissions. In addition he consults to an outpatient eating disorder program for patients of all ages and has a small private practice.
Dr. Ocana completed medical school at the University of Ottawa in 1997 after completing an undergraduate degree in psychology. He went on to complete his psychiatric residency program at the University of Toronto specializing in children and adolescents. (During his residency, Dr.Ocana pursued specialized training in neuropsychiatry publishing a paper on Mild Head Injury, in addition to pursued psychotherapy training in Interpersonal Psychotherapy, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Psychodynamic approaches.)
Dr. Ocana moved to Kelowna, British Columbia following graduation, with his wife Cathy and is the proud father of two children ages 11 and 9.
In addition to his clinical and administrative work he has been providing education to the public and to mental health practitioners through Canadian Medical Health Association and some of his talks are available online on topics from Eating Disorders in Youth, to Adolescent Depression and Suicide.
Dr Ocana has special interests in Attachment Theory, Culture and Neurodevelopment and over the past two years has published an online blog titled TeenShrinkTalk where he explores and reviews issues in neurodevelopment, culture, attachment and mental health as they evolve through the lifespan.
http://teenshrinktalk.blogspot.ca
Dr. Ocana has recently begun training in the modality of Somatic Experiencing, a therapeutic approach pioneered by Peter Levine and is scheduled to become fully accredited by the fall of next year if all goes well.
David Van Nuys, PhD
Creator/Host of Shrink Rap Radio
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