Lalithkumar Solai, MD

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LalithKumar Solai, M.D., is from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He served as the Professor of Psychiatry and the Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry. While there, he also served as Medical Director of Patient Safety at the UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH). In addition, he was the medical director of the Center for Interventional Psychiatry (CIP), overseeing care for patients with severe, difficult-to-treat depression and other debilitating psychiatric disorders. Under Dr. Solai's leadership, the CIP maintained a national reputation as a top provider of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), widely considered the gold-standard treatment for severe depression. Dr. Solai also substantially expanded the range of therapies provided by the CIP, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and ketamine. As chief of geriatric psychiatry, Dr. Solai led WPH's Geriatric Psychiatry Services (the largest geriatric psychiatric psychiatry division in the country), including the Geriatric Psychiatry Inpatient Unit, the Long-Term Care program, the Bellefield Enhanced Support Team (BEST) program, the Benedum Geriatric Center and UPMC Senior Care–Shadyside. He also supervised clinical services to more than 15 local/regional long-term care centers. His passion for clinical services lies within mental health services for nursing home patients. He created and managed a 30-bed nursing home unit that serves only primary behavioral health patients. Dr. Solai is a dedicated and accomplished educator who has taught extensively at all levels, particularly in resident and fellow training at WPH. He organized and ran the regional annual conference on Behavioral Health and Aging for more than ten years. He was the director of the geriatric psychiatry fellowship, a training program with a national reputation for clinical and educational excellence in late-life mental health.