Pamela J. Szeeley, MD

Dr. Szeeley has dedicated more than 30 years in psychiatry to treating the severely mentally ill, ranging from patients with schizophrenia to refractory depression, as well as those with intellectual or medical compromise.  She is currently Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Division Director of Community Psychiatry, Cooper University Health Care and Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. She received her MD from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where she also did her residency at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC). She also has a master of science degree in biostatistics/human genetics from the Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Szeeley has directed acute psychiatric units in several medical schools/university hospitals in Philadelphia as well as at Cooper, in addition to treating severely intellectually/medically  compromised patients in the nursing home setting. For more than 15 years she has dedicated herself to ensuring the best treatment for people with severe mental illness as Medical Director of the Wiley Christian Community Day Program. She also is the Director of the Geriatric/Neuropsychiatry clinic with the third-year residents at Cooper University Hospital. Dr. Szeeley also serves on the consultation service at Cooper.

Dr. Szeeley’s training at WPIC focused on accurate diagnosis and rational, effective psychopharmacology and this has been a focus of her role as both clinician and educator. She has served on the faculty of Temple University School of Medicine, the Medical College of Pennsylvania (now Drexel) and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now Rutgers). She has spent her last 20 years at Cooper. During this time she has helped train more than 100 residents and tried to impart to each of them the effectiveness of careful interviewing and diagnosis, as well as a method of ongoing treatment and evaluation, taking into consideration both psychosocial and biological aspects of the individual. She has mentored many fourth-year residents in mastering the fine points of psychopharmacology and is currently working with a fourth-year resident to evaluate the treatment of schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder at the Wiley Community Day Program. Dr. Szeeley’s other main focus is neuropsychiatry, which involves the psychiatric treatment of adults with acquired neurologic impairments as well as those with developmental delay. 

In addition to the above, Dr. Szeeley has a special interest in the role of animals in psychiatric treatment: both companion animals and trained therapy assistants have great potential to aid in the healing of those afflicted with mental illness.