Andrés Sciolla, M.D.
Associate Clinical Professor
Outpatient Psychiatric Services
University of California, San Diego
140 Arbor Drive
San Diego, CA 92103 – MC 0851
Tel 619-543-6945
Fax 619-543-7357

Biography
Dr. Andrés Sciolla obtained his M.D. degree from the University of Chile in 1983, and finished his postgraduate training in psychiatry in 1989. He came to UCSD in 1991, and worked at the Human Circadian Pacemaker Laboratory, the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center, and the Geriatric Psychiatry Clinical Research Center until 1997. Dr. Sciolla conducted studies and published in the areas of HIV-associated dyssomnia, psychiatric morbidity among populations at risk for HIV, and health-related quality of life among older patients with psychosis. Subsequently he completed his psychiatry residency, and joined UCSD’s faculty upon graduation in 2001.

Research Focus
Dr. Sciolla’s career currently focuses in research, teaching, and assessment of competence in patient-physician communication, psychotherapeutic skills, and the integration of biomedical and humanistic aspects of medicine and psychiatry. He is particularly interested in how research findings in cognitive and affective neuroscience can inform the teaching and practice of such clinical skills. Together with faculty at the School of Medicine and the Department of Family Medicine he is studying the effect of educational interventions among medical students with substandard communication skills, and physicians with difficulties managing professional boundaries.

Clinical Focus
Dr. Sciolla cares for ambulatory patients at the Outpatient Psychiatric Services and the Maria Sardinas Center in San Ysidro. His practice is influenced by the paradigm of patient-centered medicine and dynamic psychiatry. Most of his patients are seen under the managed-care system of medication visits of 15-20 minutes. During these type of visits Dr. Sciolla strives to integrate the biomedical model, cutting-edge psychopharmacology, cultural sensitivity, and psychodynamic techniques to elucidate unconscious meaning of medication, symptoms, and the therapeutic relationship. He has been conducting psychodynamic psychotherapy with a handful of patients for the past three years under the supervision of Dr. Davis Suskind.

Selected Publications
Sciolla, Andrés, Lolas, F. Cholino-Aminergic and chronobiological hypotheses of mood disorders: toward an integration. International Review of Psychiatry 1, 1992 (pp. 355-365).

Sciolla, Andrés, Grant, I., and Atkinson, J.H.. Neuropsychiatric Features of HIV Disease. In: A Mental Health Practitioner’s Guide to the Neuropsychiatric Complications of HIV/AIDS, edited by van Gorp WG and Buckingham SL, Guilford Publications, New York, 1998 (pp. 106-200).

Sciolla, Andrés. Iatrogenic psychoses. Seminars in Clinical Neuropsychology 3, 1998 (pp. 61-69).

Sciolla, Andrés, Jeste, D. Use of antipsychotics in the elderly. International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice 2, 1998 (pp. 527-534).

Sciolla, Andrés. Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain. Why Medication Isn’t Enough. By Elio Frattaroli. New York (NY): Penguin Books, 2002. The American Journal of Psychiatry (in press).