I’ve always been motivated by the saying: “It’s Easier To Build A Child Than Repair An Adult”

Early life

Dr. Harjot spent his infancy through preschool years in Dublin (Ireland), after which his family moved back to his hometown in the Province of Punjab in Northern India. He feels blessed that he was enriched by the learnings from a multicultural society while being able to study in an English based Catholic school in his hometown that put him on the path to where he is now. Early academic success and an inquisitiveness to learn and understand more about nature, and particularly the human body, led to an easy decision for him to pursue the field of medicine.

Education

After completing his basic schooling at Sacred Heart School and Guru Nanak Public School, he continued his higher education at Dayanand Medical College where he received his Doctor of Medicine degree.

It was whilst in medical school, and especially during his psychiatry training months, that he was first exposed to the vast breadth and magnitude of psychiatric and neurological ailments affecting us all. He was also saddened and frustrated by the societal rejection and overall dearth of care in this much needed field.

In addition to studying psychiatric ailments in adults, he was drawn to mental health in children who aren’t able to advocate for themselves. In pursuit of better training in the field, he ended up moving to England after finishing up medical school. There he felt privileged at being given the opportunity to work with the Learning Disabled during his brief time at Hillingdon Hospital, West London.

He started his Senior House Officer training through West London Mental Health Trust & finished a 6 month psychiatry academic course at Oxford.

He has also worked as a Senior House Officer in Forensic Psychiatry at Broadmoor Hospital, working with the severely personality disordered and mentally ill in a high security prison hospital.

Residency and Fellowship

Dr. Harjot Sekhon later moved to the United States to complete formal training in Psychiatry at University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA).

He followed that by also completing a Fellowship at University of Virginia and was the Chief Fellow in the Child Psychiatry Program for his senior year.

His research during fellowship included studying the effect of ADHD stimulant medications on the brains of young adults. He also presented a poster on the topic at the American Academy of Child Psychiatry annual meeting.

Treatment Philosophy

Dr. Harjot feels that his philosophy in how he approaches mental health is reflected by experiences gained through growing up in different cultures in different parts of the world and through shared experiences of his patients and mentors. He strongly believes in a multidimensional approach to treatment.

In addition to a possible genetic predisposition, neuro-psychiatric symptoms can happen at different stages of development due to environmental hardships and stressors that affect normal coping mechanisms. It becomes paramount for evaluators to help identify the problem, try to modify the environmental factors (if possible), and treat symptoms in an attempt to maintain homeostasis.

Neurosciences have taught us how brain chemistry is altered during neuro-psychiatric distress states, and our expanding and rapidly growing knowledge of psychopharmacology has provided us with valuable treatment options such as psychopharmaceuticals.

Electromagnetic induction can be used for depression treatments with new & emerging techniques like TMS.

Pharmacogenomics is the study of how genes affect a person’s response to drugs. This relatively new field combines pharmacology (the science of drugs) and genomics (the study of genes and their functions) to develop effective, safe medications and doses that will be tailored to a person’s genetic makeup.

Although Dr. Harjot considers all of these approaches and more, he is a firm believer that there are no easy fixes in life. He usually wants most, if not all, of his patients to be involved in psychotherapy to work on coping mechanisms, lifestyle modification, stress management, mindfulness and other ways to gain better control over their lives and the ways they interact with others.