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 and the Division Chief of Medicine in Psychiatry Services within the Department of Psychiatry.

Since 1999, Dr.Olivares has overseen the delivery of comprehensive medical care to complex patients in both the inpatient Med-Psych unit (IMIPS) and its sister outpatient primary care practice, MIPS. She is Medical Director of Lazos Fuertes, 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 acute services and is currently the Medical Director of Interventional Psychiatry Program, where she has established the very popular Interventional Psychiatry Certificate Course for psychiatric residents..
More recently she was honored and named the first Assistant Chair of Diversity, Inclusion and Cultural Engagement in the Department of Psychiatry.


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. She joined the faculty upon graduation in 1999.


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