Alumni Spotlights
Dr Nishi Bhopal - Sleep Doctor & Youtuber
Nishi Bhopal MD is board certified in Psychiatry, Sleep Medicine, and Integrative Holistic Medicine. She graduated from the School of Medicine at UCC, completed her Psychiatric residency at Henry Ford Health System, and a fellowship in Sleep Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School.
She is the founder and medical director of Pacific Integrative Psychiatry, an online practice in California where patients receive a whole-person approach to anxiety and sleep disorders, including nutrition, psychotherapy, coaching, and integrative medicine. In addition to her private practice, Dr Bhopal is the founder of IntraBalance, an educational platform for physicians and therapists that includes a YouTube channel and online courses on clinical sleep medicine for healthcare practitioners. Her passion is making clinical sleep medicine easy to understand and accessible to all.
Course studied at UCC and year of graduation:
Medicine, 2008
What brought you from Canada to Cork to study medicine?
Because there are only a few medical schools in Canada, the admission rate is quite low, about less than 10% nationally. This is why you see a great number of Canadians studying medicine abroad.
One day, as I was finishing university and applying to med school, I was browsing the local bookstore. In the academic section, a small book with a yellow spine jumped out. I thumbed through it and, at the very back, there was a section about The Atlantic Bridge program, which helps international students study medicine in Ireland. That piqued my interest, as I’d always had an affinity for Ireland - as a teenager, I devoured anything written by Oscar Wilde and Maeve Binchy. Also, my father’s from Glasgow and I’d lived there as a child. Even though I grew up on the other side of the world in Vancouver, Canada and hadn’t been to Ireland before, this region of the world was somewhat familiar to me. I excitedly told a good friend about the Atlantic Bridge program, we applied together, both got accepted to UCC, and moved to Cork a few months later.
Tell us a bit about your career journey. How did you get to where you are today?
The adventure of moving halfway around the world for medical school unlocked a sense of flexibility that has informed my career. In med school, I was one of those students who was interested in everything and I had a hard time pinning down what I wanted to do. Upon graduation, I applied for internal medicine residencies in the United States and got accepted to the Henry Ford Hospital program in Detroit, Michigan. However, I realized that I really enjoyed psychiatry, and indeed had won the Pfizer Gold Medical in Psychiatry at UCC. After my intern year, I transferred into the psychiatry program at Henry Ford, and pursued a sleep medicine fellowship after that at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School in Boston. I worked in a variety of settings after graduation, including outpatient psychiatric clinics, a university mental health clinic in Chicago, consultation-liaison psychiatry in a hospital system, and a sleep clinic.
Like many medical residents, I experienced burnout and anxiety during training. It was then I discovered yoga and meditation which had a huge impact on my stress levels, energy, and overall experience of life. That kicked off an exploration into integrative medicine. I envisioned one day having my own practice where patients could experience the best of modern medicine and ancient wisdom. Now, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and own a group practice called Pacific Integrative Psychiatry where we do just that - we offer patients an integrative, holistic approach to anxiety and sleep disorders, with an emphasis on nutrition, gut health, mind-body practices, and lifestyle medicine. We see patients remotely across the state of California and are expanding.
Another aspect of my career that I love is teaching. As a medical resident, I’d raise my hand whenever there was an opportunity to teach medical students, social work students, and other trainees. UCC’s medical education is world class and I was able to impart some of what I had learned to students in the US, as they don’t get the deep education that Irish students receive with regard to clinical history and examination.
My love of teaching has manifested in a YouTube channel that I started in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it’s grown to over 10,000 subscribers and counting. The focus of the YouTube channel is teaching physicians and healthcare professionals about integrative sleep medicine, as most doctors get only 2 hours of sleep education in training despite the fact that all of our patients need to sleep. To fill in the educational gap, I’ve developed online courses for practitioners and patients on sleep. It’s been such a fun endeavor which has allowed me to express my creative side and serve at a larger scale beyond the walls of my clinical practice. An additional side effect of being on YouTube has been receiving consulting and speaking opportunities for major brands and media companies, which I never sought out to do or imagined was possible.
Where did your passion for sleep medicine come from?
Sleep medicine was personal for me. I was a sleepy kid. Getting up for school on time was a challenge, I’d take long naps after school and on weekends, and the sleep deprivation during residency training took a toll on my mental health. It felt like I just couldn’t get a handle on it. I didn’t actually know that sleep medicine was a specialty until a senior resident told me she was pursuing a sleep fellowship. As it turned out, Henry Ford Hospital is a leading sleep center in the US and I started doing rotations there. And that was it for me. I fell in love with the specialty and learned so much more about how to support my psychiatric patients, as there is a bidirectional relationship between sleep and mental health. Helping a patient get a good night’s sleep is incredibly gratifying. It’s not just about sleep, it’s about helping people have the energy to live fully. To see a patient’s improvements in depression, anxiety, physical health, and vitality so that they can explore life to their fullest potential - that’s why we do this work.
Professionally, what are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of being able to inspire people around me, whether they’re patients, colleagues, or others I’ve never met. As a shy, introverted person who’s much more comfortable hiding silently in a corner with a book, I never imagined my career would involve a social media presence or speaking on stages. But I receive messages every week from people stating that my work helped them with their health, or improved outcomes in their clinical practice, or inspired them to overcome fears that were holding them back. That inspires me to keep going.
Best memories from your time at UCC?
There are so many! I look back fondly at my time at UCC. Some of my favourite memories are the quietest ones. Walking up and down Wilton Road with classmates to CUH or Tesco, getting pizza with friends at Milano typically followed by dessert at Gino’s Gelato, hanging out at Brookfield between classes, renting a car and exploring West Cork - definitely an adventure for those us who were used to driving on the other side of the road! It was a cherished time in my life. I remember feeling so welcomed by the staff and students at UCC. Although it’s been years since I left, I feel a special affinity for Cork and can’t wait to come back for a visit.