Dr. Patrick Marius Koga is an Associate Clinical Professor of International Health at UCD School of Medicine, Dept. of Public Health and the President of the Veteran, Immigrant, & Trauma Institute of Sacramento (VIRTIS ). Dr. Koga was trained in Romania and at Tulane and his work in the past 20 years has focused on cultural and spiritual modulators of posttraumatic stress disorder due to armed conflict, complex emergencies, forced displacement, and immigration. His current international research work includes a cross-cultural psychometric evaluation of the reliability and validity of the Civilian Version of the Mississippi Scale for Combat-Related PTSD in the present Kyrgyz-Uzbek conflict in Kyrgyzstan, and a resilience study of the Iranian refugees in Turkey. At UC Davis Center for Healthcare Policy and Research, Dr. Koga is focused on needs assessments and epidemiological surveys of the psychosocial reintegration of OIF/OEF veterans with PTSD and of the disparity gap in mental health services available to Eastern European, Afghan, and Iranian refugees in the Greater Sacramento Metropolitan Area.
More about Dr. Koga, from his bio at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, CA:
Patrick Marius Koga, MD, MPH
- MD, University of Timisoara, Faculty of Medicine, Romania, 1984. Specialization: Adult Psychiatry, 1988
- MPH, International Health & Development, specialization in Cross-Cultural Mental Health & Medical Anthropology, Tulane School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana, 1999
- Board certified and Diplomate of American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, 2006.
Marius is a Professor at the
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. A psychiatrist and a former political prisoner, torture survivor, and refugee from communist Romania, Marius’ professional interest focuses on the cultural, religious, and spiritual dimensions of PTSD in war refugees from Eastern Europe and the Middle East who have resettled in California. His spiritual path unfolds out of over two decades of practice of Advaita Vedanta, Zen Buddhism, martial arts (5th degree black belt in Karate-Do, 4th degree black belt in Judo and Jujutsu) and out of several years of monastic living as an initiated disciple of the Ramakrishna Order of India.
For the past ten years Marius has also been promoting cultural, religious, and spiritual competencies in medical student education in various capacities such as Dean of International Medicine & Development, Cambridge Overseas Medical Training Programme, Cambridge, UK, Course Director for Transcultural Mental Health and Spirituality at Tulane School of Medicine in New Orleans, and currently as an Associate Clinical Professor of International Health at the UC Davis School of Medicine.
Marius believes that in an increasingly globalized world, ridden with disparities, conflicts, and violence, ITP has a unique opportunity to partner its expertise and leadership in transpersonal psychology with public health, medicine, government, policy makers, donors, educators, and factors of social change to reduce suffering and mental illness, and to promote individual and collective growth and well-being.
Editor's note: For more on Dr. Koga's work with VIRTIS, which also focuses on veterans, click here.
