Psychiatric evaluations, medication management, and supportive therapy for adults 18 to 65, including graduate students and university staff.
Book an Appointment →West Falls Church has a different rhythm from the rest of the city. The Metro station pulls in commuters from well beyond Falls Church, the Northern Virginia Center nearby hosts graduate programs run by Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, and the blocks around the station are in the middle of the largest redevelopment the area has seen in decades. The result is a neighborhood full of people passing through on a two year or four year clock: master's students, doctoral candidates, research and administrative staff, and working professionals fitting a degree around a full-time job.
Anh "Alice" Tran, PMHNP-BC, FNP-BC, is a dual board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and family nurse practitioner licensed in Virginia, treating adults 18 to 65. The office at 3060 Williams Drive, Suite 300, Fairfax, VA 22031 is a short drive out Route 7 or Route 50 into Merrifield, with free parking, so in-person visits are realistic from here. Secure video visits are available anywhere in Virginia for the weeks when they are not.
This is adult psychiatry. The emphasis stays on how a condition behaves in your actual semester or your actual work week, not on how neatly it maps onto a diagnostic list.
Attention and executive function. ADHD in adults, which surfaces constantly in graduate programs, because coursework rewards raw ability while a thesis rewards self-management. Many people get through a bachelor's degree on deadline pressure and hit a wall at the point where nobody sets the deadlines. Start with the adult ADHD self-check or read about ADHD treatment.
Anxiety and panic. Anxiety before defenses and presentations, generalized anxiety that never turns off, panic attacks, and obsessive compulsive patterns that turn revision into an unending loop. The GAD-7 is free, and anxiety treatment explains what is available.
Mood. Depression, including the kind that still submits everything on time, plus bipolar disorder and grief carried through a program that leaves no room for it. See the PHQ-9 and depression treatment.
Trauma, sleep, and burnout. PTSD and trauma responses, insomnia built out of late nights and early classes, and burnout that has passed from tired into clinically meaningful. Postpartum and perinatal mood care is available for students and staff with young children.
Academic and near-academic life produces a recognizable set of pressures, and most of them are treatable rather than inevitable.
A full-time job followed by an evening seminar and reading afterward. It is sustainable for a term or two. By the third, sleep debt and irritability start doing the talking, and people assume they simply lack discipline.
Coursework has structure. A thesis does not. Adults who never struggled academically often meet ADHD for the first time when the external scaffolding disappears and nothing replaces it.
A single working relationship can determine years of your life, with very little recourse if it sours. The powerlessness in that is real and shows up as anxiety, avoidance, and eventually as not opening email.
International and out-of-state students hold a time zone difference between themselves and everyone who knows them well. Family calls at odd hours, holidays land alone, and asking for help can feel like admitting the move was a mistake.
The redevelopment around West Falls means noise, detours, and a landscape that changes month to month. Small, constant disruption is easy to dismiss and still wears people down.
Funding shifts, a committee member leaves, a semester gets added. Delay after delay corrodes motivation, and what looks like burnout is sometimes depression that has been building the whole time.
Psychiatric evaluation. A full 60 minutes for the first appointment, which is enough to get the sequence right rather than the summary. When symptoms began, what was happening at the time, what has already been tried and what happened, what runs in the family, how you sleep, how much caffeine is propping up the day, and what an ordinary week feels like from the inside. Graduate students often arrive with a diagnosis assigned quickly by a busy clinic. Part of the evaluation is checking whether it still describes you.
Medication management. If medication is a reasonable option, you hear the reasoning first: what it should do, the realistic timeline, what to watch for in the first weeks, and what happens if it does not fit. Dosing follows how you respond. Prescriptions go to whichever pharmacy is convenient. Controlled medications, including stimulants for ADHD, follow Virginia requirements, which can mean coming into the Fairfax office. The medication management page covers the details.
Supportive therapy. Follow-ups leave room to talk rather than just count symptoms. That might mean deciding whether to change advisors, breaking a stalled chapter into something a person can actually start, or protecting sleep through a defense. When your situation calls for structured, longer-term therapy, Alice will say so directly and help you find a therapist rather than stretching this practice past what it does well. More on the services page.
Intake paperwork arrives beforehand so the hour is spent in conversation. Answer what you can and skip anything you are unsure about. Insurance is verified in advance so you know the cost before you sit down.
For video, open doxy.me/alicetran a few minutes early in a browser. Nothing installs and no account is created. Alice usually opens with why now, because the moment someone decides to make the call is usually informative. From there the conversation covers symptoms, history, medical background, and anything you take now, including supplements and anything from a campus clinic. Then she explains what she is thinking and why before a plan exists, so you can push back while it is still being formed. Most people book a follow-up two to four weeks out.
You see Alice at every visit. In a stretch of life where the advisor changes, the roommate changes, and the campus clinic assigns whoever is on rotation, one clinician who remembers your history is worth a lot.
Alice trained under psychiatrist Dr. Errol Segall, MD, who has over 50 years of clinical experience, and holds dual board certification in psychiatric mental health and family practice. The family practice background matters when the presenting complaint is fatigue or brain fog, because thyroid problems, anemia, iron deficiency, and sleep apnea all produce symptoms that look psychiatric and deserve to be ruled in or out rather than skipped.
Costs are published rather than quoted after the fact: $400 for the 60 minute initial visit, $200 for a 30 minute follow-up, $250 for a 45 minute follow-up, no memberships and no hidden fees. Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Medicare, and Medicaid are accepted. See rates and more about Alice.
Care is available fully in English or fully in Tiếng Việt with no interpreter. Falls Church holds the region's Vietnamese cultural hub at Eden Center, and for students far from family, being able to describe what is happening in a first language often produces a more accurate picture. See Vietnamese-language care.
The Fairfax office is close enough that in-person visits are a genuine option, not a formality. A common pattern from West Falls Church is coming in for the evaluation and then using video for follow-ups during heavy stretches of the semester.
Visits are by video, never by telephone. If the connection drops, you rejoin the same link at doxy.me/alicetran and continue, and the office will call to help you get back in so the appointment finishes on video. Telehealth is available anywhere in Virginia, and you must be physically in Virginia while the visit is happening, which matters if you travel for fieldwork or conferences. More on the Northern Virginia telehealth page.
Patients here often come from across the western edge of the city and into Fairfax County. Alice also works with adults in Falls Church, East Falls Church, Pimmit Hills, Tysons, Tysons Corner, Vienna, Merrifield, and Fairfax. Telehealth covers the rest of the state.
Standard hours are Monday through Thursday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern, which sits before most evening sections start. Evening and weekend times may be available on request, so mention your class schedule when you book or when you call or text (703) 791-9099.
No. This is a private practice with no relationship to any school, and your record is protected health information. Nothing is reported to a department, an advisor, or a program. If you ever want documentation sent somewhere, it happens only because you ask for it in writing.
Yes, and it happens often. Bring whatever you know about what you have taken, the doses, and how you responded. Alice will review it, decide with you whether to continue the same approach or change it, and take over ongoing prescribing if that is what you want.
Coverage is checked before your first visit so you are not guessing. The plans accepted here are Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Medicare, and Medicaid. If a student plan is not among them, self-pay is published and flat: $400 for the 60 minute evaluation, $200 for a 30 minute follow-up, $250 for a 45 minute follow-up.
They help but they are not required. Old report cards, a testing report, or a parent who remembers what you were like at nine all add useful detail. Without them, the evaluation relies on your own history, which is how most adult assessments are conducted anyway.
It can. Noise that starts early and continues through the afternoon shortens sleep, fragments naps, and wears down tolerance for everything else. Whether that is the cause or just an aggravating factor is part of what the evaluation sorts out rather than assumes.
It is possible, but the prescribing needs to be clear so two clinicians are not adjusting the same category of medication. Alice will ask who prescribes what and coordinate directly. Controlled medications follow Virginia requirements, which can include an in-person visit at the Fairfax office.
Virginia licensure means visits stop when you are no longer in the state. Plan the handoff a month or two ahead and Alice will write a summary of your treatment for the next provider, so a new clinician is not starting from nothing.
When there is more than one thing to work through: a medication change plus a difficult stretch, a decision you want to think out loud about, or a period where several things shifted at once. You can choose the longer visit yourself, and it does not have to be every time.
It depends entirely on what is being treated, and no timeline should be promised. Some sleep problems improve within days. Antidepressants generally take several weeks before the effect is clear. Stimulant medication tends to show its effect quickly but still needs dose adjustment. Alice will tell you what is realistic for your situation rather than what sounds encouraging.
Often yes. A single semester is enough time for an evaluation, a first medication trial, and one or two adjustments, and it gives you a written record and a clear plan to hand to whoever treats you next. Starting is not wasted just because it does not finish here.
Call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or go to the nearest emergency department. This practice does not provide crisis coverage and does not monitor messages after hours.
More general questions are answered on the FAQ page.
Book online, or call or text (703) 791-9099 if you want to ask about fit first. New patients are typically seen within one to two weeks, no referral needed, and coverage is verified before the first visit. Email info@alicetrannp.com if that is easier. In an emergency, call or text 988.
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