Scarsdale Psychiatry PLLC (Shama Saqi M.D)

“Dr. Saqi is a very thorough doctor. She listens closely and spends a good deal of time to diagnose and treat the issues. I have been very happy with her, her diagnosis and treatment has been spot on, and whenever I’ve reached out on phone or text, she follows up promptly, on weekends and even when she’s away! She’s a great find if one is looking for an expert physician who also cares for her patients’s well being! Highly recommend”

“Dr. Saqi is a great psychiatrist who gets back to me right away with any questions/needs I have. She is very easy to talk to even if it is the hard topics. Would highly reccomend!”

“Conscientious, thorough and most of all, kind psychiatrist. Goes above and beyond to provide thoughtful patient care. Is up to date re: latest psychiatric medicines and makes a careful and individual treatment plan for each patient. She collaborates well with other clinicians. She is a special, gifted psychiatrist! I highly recommend her!”

“I’m posting this on a burner account because I don’t want this to be linked back to me. Personally, Dr. Saqi wasn’t a good fit for me. She might be good for others, so my star rating is based on how she treated me. I worked with Dr. Saqi for multiple years. I started off seeing her 4 years ago when I was in 9th grade after a mental hospital visit. She was in network with the clinic that I went to the hospital for, so she was naturally assigned to me. All she really did for me was prescribe me medicine, just like what another review said. Four years ago, I didn’t really trust anyone, and always put up a happy front around people I knew, I suppose Dr. Saqi was no exception. She never really questioned me about my depression, or gauged the severity of it. I never really trusted her, truth be told. She constantly made me feel uncomfortable, I don’t have the best memory (I have C-PTSD, which makes it very difficult for me to remember events), but all I know is that I constantly felt like I could never tell her the truth. Perhaps it’s partially my fault for not speaking up sooner. For not being able to trust her with how depressed I actually felt - she even put me down as “depression in remission” at one point. We just talked about my school life, the occasional touch on my trauma, and that was it. We never dug deeper. She most likely assumed I was like any other kid who attended Scarsdale, merely a byproduct of, as she put it, a “pressure cooker” school. She put me on minimal medicine (2 different types, one with an incredibly low dose), and I still felt miserable. At one point, I mentioned that I had a playlist set up for after I died (well, if you know what I mean, just following Google Review guidelines) and she made fun of it, she kept on bringing it up session after session, making sure I “wasn’t listening to it?” and then she’d laugh about it. I thought I was just being overdramatic about feeling uncomfortable. Looking back at it, even though I still feel a degree of embarrassment for it, I still think what she did was inappropriate. Psychiatrists are supposed to make you feel comfortable and be accepting. Another thing is that I’m transgender (non-binary, they/them) and I made that very clear when I saw her. I corrected her a lot (though not every time, I gave up eventually) but she gave minimal effort to try and use the correct pronouns. Even if she didn’t understand, she could have defaulted to my name instead of my pronouns. My breaking point was when I went to Dr. Saqi’s office for the last time (this was around December). I’ve always had a fixation on getting diagnosed with things, because I don’t believe that I’ve actually been harmed, so I wanted something concrete to explain why I was in so much pain. She turned me down for even attempting to test me over and over and over, and this last time I mentioned how something terrible had happened and I had gotten triggered again. She brought up the possibility of me having cyclical C-PTSD, and I asked why she couldn’t diagnose me, and she kept on waving off my question until she claimed that “she had another patient coming in” and then she kept on saying bye to me and then she kicked me out of her office. I don’t think a psychiatrist should avoid your questions like this. This situation could have easily been resolved with “I don’t have the proper materials to help diagnose you right now, but I can refer you to someone else” or something along the lines of that. She didn’t even bother to hear me. I found a new psychiatrist, who not only diagnosed me with CPTSD and ADHD but also put me on more medication. I’ve never felt happier in my life. Overall, I’d only recommend Dr. Saqi if you’re seeing treatment for milder depression, stuff that doesn’t encompass all of your life and only needs a touch of the lowest dosage of medication. If you have more severe issues, or you’re transgender, then I’d recommend finding someone else. She is knowledgeable about what she knows, but she wasn’t a good fit for me.”