Dr. Gopal earned his medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, where he took an interest in psychiatry and combating mental health stigmas through a holistic approach to patient care. That interest led him to a fellowship with the Clinton Foundation in India, where he worked with the CDC treating patients with HIV while also caring for their mental health. A psychiatry residency program at Harvard Medical School and a consultation-liaison psychiatry fellowship at George Washington University followed, helping to foster a passion for treating patients in Emergency Rooms and Hospital Wards.

 

With clinical experience under his belt, he began an administrative career in program development as the director for Consult Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. He then moved to California to do the same at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles prior to joining Access Telecare. Here he helped develop a robust virtual consultation and liaison, outpatient, and emergency psychiatry service as Chief Medical Officer, seeing it as an engine to get evidence-based treatments to more patients throughout the country. He currently works as the Director of Quality and Safety, Associate Director for Inpatient Psychiatry, & Consultation Liaison Psychiatry at Los Angeles General Hospital and is on faculty at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.

 

Through this journey, he has won numerous teaching awards at Penn and George Washington University, a Penn Innovations grant to develop a pro-active consult service, and has published. Included in the literature is a pioneering manuscript and case study on the use of ketamine in hospital settings. He approaches patients with a therapeutic lens first and uses medications in a thoughtful manner whether in the office, emergency room, or hospital.