Telva E. Olivares, M.D.

Professional Background

Telva E. Olivares, MD
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Clinical Medicine
University of Rochester Medical Center

Dr. Olivares is an internist–psychiatrist at the University of Rochester who serves as the Assistant Chair of Diversity, Inclusion, Culture and Equity, the Director of the Medicine in Psychiatry Services and Director of Lazos Fuertes; mental health program for Latinos all within the Department of Psychiatry.

Since graduating in 1999 from the combined Medicine-Psychiatry residency program at the University of Rochester, Dr.Olivares has overseen the delivery of comprehensive medical care to complex patients in both the inpatient Med-Psych unit (IMIPS), which she founded in 2007, and its sister outpatient primary care practice, MIPS. Since 2000 she is Medical Director of Lazos Fuertes, the only Spanish language program of its kind, providing mental healthcare to Rochester's Latinx population through a team of bicultural/bilingual professionals. She has extensive clinical and administrative experience in all aspects of psychiatric acute services having served as Medical Director of Acute Psychiatry Services, Medical Director of Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program and more recently as Medical Directory of Interventional Psychiatry Program, where she established the very popular Interventional Psychiatry Certificate Course for psychiatric residents..

Dr. Olivares was born in Panama but raised in Rochester where she graduated from Pittsford High School and the University of Rochester with a BS in Biology and Geology. She married and moved to Mexico City where she attended the Universidad Anahuac's Medical School graduating with Honors. She began postgraduate training in Psychiatry at Yale-New Haven, transferring to the University of Rochester to pursue combined training in Medicine and Psychiatry. Upon graduation in 1999, she joined the faculty at the University of Rochester.

Dr. Olivares has remained committed and passionate about the delivery of care for underserved complex populations, with a specific focus on the severely and persistent mentally ill (SPMI), developing services that seek to improve the healthcare disparities these patient populations experience. Her mission remains to impact the functional lifespan of SPMI populations through evidence based patient centered preventive care practices.