Had Dr. Nicholas Stratas not become a psychiatrist, he might have been a professional violinist.
But his love of music took second fiddle to his greater love: helping people.
Music’s loss was medicine’s gain. During a career spanning more than half a century, Stratas helped countless people – “individuals, couples, families, groups and organizations,” according to a news release outlining his professional career – working in the mental health systems in Virginia and North Carolina and in private practice.
His approach used “general systems, experiential, cognitive, behavioral and spiritual framework and approach to mental wellness,” according to the release.
“What’s satisfying about psychiatry is that I become a coworker in people’s lives,” Stratas said. “I don’t take over their lives. Nobody can do things for you, but I become a coworker helping each other.”
Stratas was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Greek immigrant parents from the island of Crete. He attributed his desire to help people to his formative years growing up over a Chinese laundry in a residential area in the city’s downtown.
“I grew up in Toronto’s, what shall I call it, worst district,” Stratas said. “We had everything going on that you expect in a district like that, but I didn’t know it was different because I didn’t know any different experience. I look back on that with a lot of love.”
Having started playing the violin at age 5, Stratas played with the University of Toronto’s symphony and, for one semester, with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He even had started performing solo concerts, but he always knew helping people should be his true career path and planned to apply to the University of Toronto’s social work program.
“I had gone to the School of Social Work and had gotten information, and somebody there said why aren’t you applying to medical school,” Stratas said. “Oh, I said, you mean to be a doctor? Yes, to be a doctor.”
Stratas applied and was preparing for a concert when he got the acceptance letter from the medical school.
“It was like night and day – absolutely two different worlds,” Stratas said of the change from music to medicine. “I didn’t know anything. It was a new experience, but I just made the change.”
Stratas first earned his bachelor’s degree in pre-med and graduated from medical school in 1957.
“Those were all good years,” Stratas said. “I mean I didn’t know any better. I worked to a great extent and made the money I could make to keep myself going.
“It’s become a way of living life for me: just do what’s in front of you. I never got into the mode of long-term planning. Even to this day, I’m a processor, so if I’m with you, I want to pay attention to what’s going on between you and me to get a feeling for your process. Of course, that had a lot to do with the specialty I chose: psychiatry.”
After medical school, Stratas and his first wife, Rene, another Greek immigrant to Canada by way of school in England, decided to look for an internship in America. Their plan was to stay for one year and then return to Canada.
Stratas found an internship in Danville in southwestern Virginia.
“Things seem to have come to me my whole life because, during that internship, I met a member of the Board of Medical Examiners of Virginia, and he said, of course, you’re going to get your license here, aren’t you?” Stratas said. “I said, oh, OK. I’ll get my license here, too. Of course, I already had my license in Canada because you do that before you graduate.”
From Danville, Stratas went to the Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, Virginia, for his residency. But because the hospital did not offer enough years for him to complete his residency, he began looking for another program. He found Dorothea Dix Hospital, the first psychiatric hospital in North Carolina, in Raleigh. Because of his previous experience, he became chief resident.
“They were paying $150 a month. University positions were paying like $50 a month,” Stratas said. “I thought it left me no choice. We ended up in Raleigh.”
The pay increase allowed Rene, who is now deceased, to quit work, and the young couple started a family. In their newly adopted hometown, they raised three sons: a well-respected lawyer and a nationally known eye surgeon, who both are deceased, and a third son who lives in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Stratas’ work in Raleigh led to a position with the North Carolina Department of Mental Health. Eventually, he became the director of professional education for the whole system.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Stratas played significant roles in North Carolina’s public mental health system. As the director of professional education, he developed two psychiatric residency training programs, which received the first National Institute of Mental Health grant in community psychiatry in the nation.
Stratas also was instrumental in integrating North Carolina’s mental health system in the then segregated South.
Stratas also had an active private practice in clinical psychiatry, including being a co-founder and managing partner of Raleigh Psychiatric Associates. The mission of the practice is to “help individuals, couples, families and groups to fulfill the promise of their lives,” according to its website.
Stratas also shared his knowledge teaching medical students. He is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina Medical School and an associate consulting professor at Duke University Medical Center. During his career, he has been a visiting lecturer at other universities, including Harvard, William and Mary, Vanderbilt and North Carolina State University.
A prolific scholar, Stratas authored more than 100 scholarly articles in journals and publications.
For his dedicated work, Stratas received honors from three North Carolina governors. He was named Outstanding Psychiatrist by the National Association of the Mentally Ill in 2012. He received the President’s Award from the North Carolina Psychiatric Association in 2008 and several citations from the American Psychiatric Association.
In 2018, Stratas received the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who’s Who as “a leader in the fields of psychiatry and higher education.”
Stratas’ second wife, Cynthia Hazen, who has a Ph.D. in sociology, introduced her husband to Aiken, where her parents had retired. They moved to the city about eight years ago and have been married 13. Hazen is a past president of the Aiken Newcomers Club.
Although retired, Stratas does consulting work, not for pay, and 85 years after he first began still plays the violin. He and his wife, who plays the piano, sometimes duet and play for friends.
But Stratas is not the only musician in his family. His sister, Teresa Stratas, is an internationally known operatic soprano who sang roles with the Metropolitan Opera in New York and in opera houses around the world.
“Nobody knew Aiken, but she [Teresa] knew Aiken because there were people, I guess, in Manhattan who knew the horse community and knew Aiken,” said Hazen about telling friends and colleagues they were moving to the city. “She gave us her seal of approval.”
In 2010, Stratas, who is a member of the Aiken Chamber of Commerce, and his wife co-founded Thriving Unlimited, researching and consulting what it is about some people who thrive, and engaging people in sharing personal experiences and perceptions of thriving. The Web address is thrivingunlimited.com.
Stratas said things have tended to go his way through his life, but his hard work from an early age attributed to his success. His first job was selling newspapers on street corners in Toronto.
“Looking back, probably the most important things that have happened to me happened in that early life – my first five to 10 to 12 years,” Stratas said. “We were pretty poor. Would you believe that when I went to kindergarten I could not speak English? I only spoke Greek. I was brought up in a Greek household, and I’m very happy about that.”
When he was old enough, we worked as a cashier in his family’s restaurant.
“I actually didn’t learn a darn thing about cooking,” Stratas said and laughed. “My mother was a phenomenal Greek cook. She actually ran our restaurants for us.”
Stratas later worked at Woolworth’s, a now defunct five-and-dime store retail chain.
Stratas continued working through medical school until the workload became too heavy and Rene provided the family income working as an administrator for the Greek Orthodox Church.
“My whole life has been satisfying. I am grateful for everything in my life,” Stratas said. “I’ve lost two sons, and people don’t quite understand how I can be grateful. Well, they were mature, and they were both extremely successful in the line they took. They did it themselves very much like I did.
“I lost my wife, but we had a phenomenal relationship. I’ve gotten married again and have a phenomenal relationship with her. My life has been a gift.”
This content was originally published here.
