Roberta Zanzonico: “From Ucbm I received a solid education”
July 25, 2019 - She graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 2010 and then flew overseas. She is Roberta Zanzonico, a UCBM alumna who will be on the faculty of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California (USC) starting in August as a specialist in Consultation and Liaison Psychiatry, a branch of communication between psychiatry and medicine.Roberta it follows, for example, women who must adapt pharmacological therapies during pregnancy or with post-partum psychosis or depression, manages assessments of suitability for organ donation and supports GPs who treat patients with mental illnesses.
But how did she arrive in this very specific field in one of the most prestigious universities in the USA? “It all started with neuroscience research conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital, a Harvard-affiliated hospital – he says Roberta –. At that time I directed my studies towards psychiatry, with a specialization at St Elizabeth's Medical Center of the Tufts School of Medicine in Boston. During the medical degree course at Ucbm I spent a training period in Philadelphia supported by the professors, first of all Prof. Paolo Pozzilli, who have always emphasized the importance of being open to internationalization. But the most important thing is that the University offered me a solid education with which I managed to pass the USMLE Step (equivalent to our professional qualification) in the United States in record time".
A path that finally led her to California where today she divides her time between clinical activity at the University of Southern California and in the Cedars-Sinai hospital in Beverly Hills, and soon teaching at both UCLA and USC.
