What It Means to Lead in Outpatient Psychiatry

More than 122 million Americans live in mental health professional shortage areas. This reflects not just a gap in resources but a gap in access to consistent, long-term psychiatric care. 

For many people, the path to finding a psychiatrist is long, hard, or simply not an option. Primary care plays a major role in one’s first exposure to mental health treatment, including medication treatment, however for psychoeducation, chronic or complex conditions, outpatient psychiatric care is a necessary, though not always accessible, resource for communities, Outpatient psychiatry is needed for ongoing, accessible treatment to patients who might need alternative options to medication. The quality of that care, and how far it reaches, depends largely on who is leading it. 

Three psychiatrists working in this space, Dr. TeeJay Tripp, DO, Dr. Philip Yam, MD, and Dr. Brad Zehring, DO, each bring something distinct to the outpatient interventional psychiatry field. Dr. Tripp discovered early in his career how transformative the impact of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was on his patients. The remission results he saw for his treatment-resistant patients, those who had not responded to traditional medications, reoriented his entire professional trajectory. 

Dr. Yam was born with the instinct to show up for people in their most vulnerable moments, first as a volunteer at a nursing facility, then trained as a firefighter and EMS responder, and eventually attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander as a Surface Warfare Embedded Mental Health Psychiatrist in the U.S. Navy. 

Dr. Zehring watched loved ones navigate mental health challenges and saw firsthand what the right professional care could do for them. 

These psychiatrists saw that people needed help, and they wanted lead medical communities to provide it. None of them came to psychiatry because it was an obvious choice. They came because something made it impossible to ignore. 

Across Every Level of Care

These three leaders all have different backgrounds and all have worked across nearly every setting of psychiatric care. 

Dr. Zehring’s career spanned across outpatient clinics, partial hospitalization programs, residential treatment facilities, and inpatient psychiatric hospitals. He also specialized in eating disorders, treating patients at every level of care. He operated across the full continuum, which gives him a working knowledge of where patients are coming from and what they have already been through by the time they reach outpatient care. 

Dr. Yam’s background goes a different direction. During his 12 years of service in the U.S. Navy, he served as Department Head of Behavioral Health at Naval Air Station New Orleans, as head of embedded mental health at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, FL, and as an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine. His clinical work focused on PTSD, veterans, and the specific mental health pressures that accompany military services. 

Dr. Tripp holds dual board certifications in both general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry, a combination that requires separate residency and fellowship training that reflects a scope that spans patients from early childhood through adulthood. His early clinical work and his decision to lead a multi-state outpatient practice both grew from the observation of people needing access to psychiatric treatment such as TMS and how that impacted patients firsthand. 

Together, they bring a collective experience. The work of outpatient psychiatry has a different impact when the people leading it have vast experience and can advocate for all patients. 

The Outpatient Difference

Many clinicians who have worked across multiple levels of psychiatric care distinguish outpatient work from inpatient with one word: time. Inpatient care is used by necessity and is crisis focused, where the goal is stabilization. Outpatient care operates on a different timeline entirely, one that allows treatment that is more long term for a person’s mental health journey. 

All three psychiatrists describe their approach in terms that reflect longer care. Dr. Tripp’s goal is not symptom management but remission. Being able to help patients reach a point where they feel like themselves again. Dr. Yam frames the doctor-patient relationship as the vehicle to recovery, something that has to be built and maintained over time. Dr. Zehring focuses on what he calls the essential pillars of well-being, sleep, nutrition, relationships, and overall wellness, treating those as part of the clinical picture rather than separate. 

What They Want Patients to Know

Outpatient psychiatry helps patients reach a place where symptoms no longer define their daily life. The STAR*D trial found that approximately 40% of patients with depression achieved remission after a first course of treatment, and nearly 70% were helped by one or more treatments over time. For patients who stay engaged in long-term outpatient psychiatric care, research shows remission rates can climb to over 70% at the 12-month mark. For many, that means returning to work with renewed focus, rebuilding relationships, and reclaiming daily routines that make life feel manageable again. It is the result of consistent, experienced care delivered by clinicians who know how to adjust and adapt alongside their patients. 

The relationship between a patient and their provider matters more in this setting than many people expect. Long-term outpatient care depends on a level of trust and openness that takes time to build. Patients who feel respected, heard, and understood tend to engage more honestly with their treatment, which shapes outcomes in ways that medication alone cannot. That engagement over time is often the difference between partial improvement and true remission. 

What happens outside the appointment also matters. Sleep, nutrition, relationships, and stress all factor into psychiatric health in ways that are clinically significant. The most effective outpatient care tends to account for those elements rather than treating them separately. Patients under experienced care often report that the individualized approach is what made the difference after years of feeling only partially helped. 

Clinicians leading outpatient psychiatry work today bring more than just credentials. They bring firsthand understanding of what sustained recovery looks like, through years of sitting across patients at every stage of the healing process. They have seen what works, what doesn’t, and what it takes to help someone move from managing their condition to genuinely living beyond it. Patients do not just feel cared for, but they are provided a genuine path forward. 

For those who have struggled to find consistent relief from mental health struggles, psychiatric outpatient care may be worth exploring. Asking for help takes tremendous courage, and that’s the first step towards recovery.