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.

Dr. Olivares oversees the delivery of comprehensive medical care to complex patients in both the inpatient Med-Psych unit (IMIPS) and its outpatient primary care practice component, MIPS. She is Medical Director of Lazos Fuertes, and provides care to Rochester's Latino population with mental health needs through a team of bicultural/bilingual professionals. She has extensive clinical experience in all aspects of acute services and is currently the Medical Director for the Comprehensive Psychiatric Evaluation Program (CPEP) and Electroconvulsive Services.

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 attended the Universidad Anahuac Medical School in Mexico City graduating with Honors. She began postgraduate training in Psychiatry at Connecticut Valley Hospital, an affiliate of Yale-New Haven University in 1992, transferring in 1994 to the University of Rochester's dual program in Medicine and Psychiatry, and then joined the psychiatry faculty in 1999.

Dr. Olivares has invested much time in the study of delirium as it affects hospitalized patients and has been awarded an MCIC grant to study and develop the "Delirium Prevention and Management Program." She remains involved in medical student education and is the faculty mentor for the School of Medicine's 'Student Hotspotter' movement, an innovative student driven intra-professional approach to understanding barriers to health care delivery for complex 'high-utilizing' patients.

Dr. Olivares has remained committed to the delivery of care for underserved complex populations. She is passionate about integrating care for these individuals in a valued care paradigm.