There’s more than one way to heal the injured, the sick, and the suffering.
That’s what David Songco, Psy.D., realized as an undergraduate at Loyola University Chicago. Originally from Monroe, Michigan, he had always planned to become a medical doctor like his brother, father, and grandfather. He quickly determined, however, that there was a different path for him.
“My initial intention was to honor my family’s wishes to become a medical doctor,” says Dr. Songco, a licensed clinical psychologist and one of five honorees receiving The Chicago School’s 2024 Distinguished Alumni award, “but at the end of my junior year, the beginning of my senior year, I had a come-to-Jesus moment: I knew I wanted to help people, but I also knew I wanted to help people in a different way.”
Instead of going to medical school, Dr. Songco enrolled at The Chicago School, where he received his master’s degree in clinical psychology in 2010 and his Doctor of Psychology in 2013.
“I was always drawn to relationships, connection, and hearing other people’s stories. That’s what made me decide to pursue a career in psychology,” says Dr. Songco, whose personal life gave him ample opportunity to witness the positive impact he could have as a psychologist.
“One story, in particular, stands out,” Dr. Songco says. “A friend of a friend had reached out to me because her family was going through a hard time. It wasn’t a trauma or a crisis, but being able to listen and be there for that person was really special. After that conversation, she told me, ‘Thank you for listening, because I feel like I was heard in a different way.’ That, to me, is the crux of good psychotherapy: being able to hear a narrative differently than someone’s friend or family member would, not necessarily offering advice but just holding space for someone to exist authentically. It was in moments like that where I began to realize I could actually effect change.”
Dr. Songco ultimately relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he worked in private practice while teaching at local institutions including Carroll University, Cardinal Stritch University, and the Wisconsin School of Professional Psychology.
Then came 2020. “COVID really illuminated for me the disparity of access to care,” Dr. Songco says. “The people who were suffering the most as a result of the pandemic were the last people in line to receive any sort of psychological services or support, and the people who had the resources, such as physicians, didn’t have the time or energy to help because they were so overwhelmed.”
Determined to help those who most needed him, Dr. Songco in 2021 accepted a position with the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), where he fills multiple roles, including that of a learning community navigator. In that role, he helps future physicians avoid burnout by teaching them “personal wellness strategies and effective behavioral medicine interventions for complex and complicated patients.”
“The relational and psychological aspects of medicine are becoming more thoroughly interwoven into medical education. In that way, we’re creating doctors who are not just doctors, but also humans with feelings,” says Dr. Songco, who also provides clinical services to patients of MCW’s Family Medicine Clinic. “These are people on the fringes of society who often have state insurance and have basically every social determinant of health working against them. They struggle with transportation, food, and housing insecurity, and we give them access to doctoral-level, high-quality mental health care in a primary-care setting.”
It’s a full-circle role for Dr. Songco. Although he didn’t end up in a white coat with a stethoscope, he spends every day doing exactly what the physicians in his family did before him: helping people in need live happier, healthier lives.
“During my first year of grad school at The Chicago School, I remember talking with the chair of my program,” Dr. Songco says. “One of the most profound things she said was, ‘We don’t choose psychology; our community chooses us to pursue it.’ To this day, that really resonates with me. I feel like I was chosen by my community to help in this way.”