Ulas Camsari, M.D.
Ulas Camsari, M.D. (Dr. C) is a quadruple board-certified psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist with over two decades of clinical, academic and leadership experience across some of the nation's most distinguished medical institutions. He trained at Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Mayo Clinic, and is the founder and medical director of Cognitive Works.
Dr. Camsari holds board certification in four distinct areas: General Adult Psychiatry, Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry/Psychosomatic Medicine, Addiction Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. His breadth of specialization gives him exceptional depth in diagnosing and treating complex psychiatric disorders, co-occurring medical and psychiatric conditions, and substance use disorders, along with expert psychopharmacological management.
Before the beginning of his formal psychiatric training, Dr. Camsari rotated at Massachusetts General Hospital and Children's Hospital Boston psychiatric departments through Harvard Medical School, mentored by Dr. Theodore Stern at Massachusetts General Hospital.
He completed his psychiatry residency at Cleveland Clinic's Neurological Institute (2006–2011), including a year at Johns Hopkins Hospital (2009–2010) in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences — the department widely regarded as the birthplace of child psychiatry, founded by Leo Kanner, who first described and coined the term autism — where he was mentored by Dr. Paul McHugh. He went on to complete a one-year Psychosomatic Medicine/Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry fellowship at the University of Maryland Medical Center and a one-year Addiction Psychiatry fellowship at Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Camsari joined Mayo Clinic Health System in Waycross, Georgia, where he served as Staff Psychiatrist and Director of Inpatient Psychiatry, Medical Director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Unit and the Consultation-Liaison Service, and ultimately Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology (2013–2016). During this period he also held a concurrent appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor at the Medical College of Georgia and served as a Research Collaborator in the Department of Neuroscience at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.
In 2016 Dr. Camsari transitioned to Mayo Clinic's flagship campus in Rochester, Minnesota, where he served as Consultant and Staff Psychiatrist in the Division of Hospital Practice and the Division of Addictions through 2020. His responsibilities spanned staffing the Mayo Clinic Emergency Department as an emergency psychiatrist, serving as one of only two specialists covering the entire Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry inpatient service on a daily basis, and staffing Mayo Clinic's Intensive Addiction Program and Intensive Outpatient Program. He concurrently held the rank of Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science (2014–2020) and was recognized three times with the Teacher of the Quarter award from the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology (Fall 2017, Winter 2018, Fall 2020).
Dr. Camsari has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed articles — including work published in Nature Publications (Neuropsychopharmacology) and JAMA Internal Medicine — on topics spanning neuroscience, neurophysiology, addictive disorders, psychosomatic medicine and clinical psychiatry. He has also contributed three book chapters, including on perioperative psychiatry for the surgical patient, the neuropathology of internet addiction, and cognitive behavioral therapy in cannabis use disorder. He served on the editorial boards of multiple academic journals.
Dr. Camsari's approach to patient care is comprehensive, guided by the four psychiatric perspectives: mental diseases, behaviors, dimensional aspects and the patient's life story. The framework was co-developed by Dr. McHugh at Johns Hopkins; Dr. Camsari later taught it to psychiatry residents at Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota, and the two discuss it in an in-depth interview. He currently practices at Cognitive Works, where he offers telehealth services. He is licensed to practice medicine in Minnesota, Florida and New Jersey.
Beyond the practice. Dr. Camsari is a classically trained pianist. Throughout high school and medical school he gave public recitals of the classical repertoire alongside his own compositions. He no longer performs publicly, but he remains an avid pianist, and playing and composing are still very much part of his life outside medicine. He also enjoys cooking and fishing, and is the father of a young daughter.