Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Academy

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The Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Academy is an educational organization for psychiatrists, psychologists, other mental health professionals, and other healthcare professionals (like registered nurses, social workers, and school counselors) who diagnose and treat patients with mental health disorders. It is directly organized and managed by the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, which is owned by Partners HealthCare, the largest healthcare provider in Massachusetts.


The Psychiatry Academy organizes and produces CME activities -- like one-day live symposia and online webcasts -- that educate attendees about effective clinical practice for treating mental health disorders, like anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression.


Contents

[edit] Locations

May 10, 2008----Atlanta
May 15----Seattle
May 17----San Francisco
May 30-31----Psychopharmacology Updates Course, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York
June 7----OCD Course, Starr Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
June 14----Washington, DC
June 20----New York
June 21----Philadelphia
June 28----ADHD Course, Starr Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
October 3----Eating Disorders Course, Starr Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
October 24-26----Psychopharmacology Course, Boston

[edit] History

The Psychiatry Academy was officially started in 2003 by the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). This Department was founded in 1934 with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, has numerous staff who hold professor and teaching positions at Harvard Medical School,[1] and has been ranked #1 in the country for numerous years by U.S.News & World Report.[2]

In 2008, the Psychiatry Academy launched a 25-year partnership with Reed Medical Education (RME).[3] RME now produces the continuing medical education programs offered by the Psychiatry Academy and handles tasks like marketing and logistics, while the Psychiatry Academy focuses on determining educational needs and content development.

The Psychiatry Academy's Webcast programs used to be called "PsychLink" and were also offered via satellite broadcasts, yet that changed slightly with the launch of the new agreement with RME. Now they are available only via Webcast, and are no longer called PsychLink.

[edit] Faculty/Staff

Faculty at Psychiatry Academy activities and programs come from within Massachusetts General Hospital as well as other prominent educational institutions like Yale University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine.[4]

Leadership of the Psychiatry Academy includes:

  • Jerrold F. Rosenbaum, MD

Dr. Rosenbaum, Chief of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is recognized as one of the world's foremost authorities on mood and anxiety disorders, with a special emphasis on pharmacotherapy of those conditions. His research contributions include extensive participation in the design and conduct of clinical trials of new therapies, the design and implementation of trials to develop innovative treatments for major depression, treatment resistant depression, and panic disorder, studies of psychopathology including comorbidity and subtypes, and studies of longitudinal course and outcomes of those disorders.

Dr. Rosenbaum has authored more than 300 original articles and reviews and has published 12 books. He currently serves on 12 editorial boards of professional journals or newsletters. A particular research interest has been ongoing studies of children at risk for anxiety disorders and depression, which addresses early temperamental differences, such as the profile known as Behavioral Inhibition to the Unfamiliar, as an identifiable early marker of risk for later psychopathology in children at risk.

At MGH, he directs a department of over 500 clinicians and researchers. Dr. Rosenbaum's clinical and consulting practice specializes in treatment-resistant mood and anxiety disorders, and he consults extensively to colleagues on management of these conditions. He lectures widely on related topics, in a variety of postgraduate educational venues.

Dr. Rosenbaum is President and Executive Director of the MGH Mood and Anxiety Disorders Institute, established with a primary mission to enhance the recognition, understanding and treatment of those disorders. Together with colleagues, he developed the MGH outpatient service into a leading clinic and clinical research center, with specialty programs including the Depression Clinical and Research Program, the Harvard-MGH Bipolar Program, the Anxiety Disorders Program, the Perinatal and Reproductive Psychiatry Program, and the Psychiatric Genetics Program in Mood and Anxiety Disorders, each of which has extensive portfolios of funded research.

Dr. Rosenbaum received his undergraduate degree from Yale College and his medical degree from Yale School of Medicine. He completed his residency and fellowship in Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.


  • Robert J. Birnbaum, MD, PhD

Dr. Birnbaum is the Director of the Division of Postgraduate Education in the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and has been in clinical practice since 1989 providing clinical consultation services. Dr. Birnbaum received his medical and research doctoral degrees from Boston University School of Medicine and Boston University's Division of Graduate Medical and Dental Sciences. His PhD research was in protein biochemistry elucidating the role of calcium regulation in stimulus response coupling in neural and smooth muscle tissue. His post-doctoral research in molecular neurobiology was completed at Harvard Medical School's Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry under the supervision of Dr. Steven E. Hyman.

Dr. Birnbaum was awarded Ethel Dupont-Warren Foundation, Dana Neuroscience Foundation, and Scottish Rite Schizophrenia Research Grants to pursue his post-doctoral research investigating the induction of immediate early genes in mouse striatum and nucleus accumbens by psychotropic agents. His psychiatry residency training was completed at Massachusetts General Hospital, as was his chief residency in psychopharmacology. He has also received additional post-doctoral training and supervision in psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and cognitive behavioral modalities of psychotherapy.

He was the Director of Clinical Research and Psychopharmacology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for 10 years and Senior Psychiatric Administrator to the CareGroup/Lahey Behavioral Health Care System. He was also the Coordinator in Charge of the Psychiatric Applications of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), Laboratory for Magnetic Brain Stimulation, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Birnbaum has been involved in numerous psychopharmacologic clinical trials investigating the treatment of mood, anxiety and psychotic disorders.


  • Timothy J. Petersen, PhD

Dr. Petersen is Associate Director of the Division of Postgraduate Education in the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, and spearheads development and implementation of continuing medical education programs delivered by MGH faculty to worldwide providers. He is the author or co-author of over 60 scholarly articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, numerous book chapters, and books.

Dr. Petersen served as a cognitive therapist and project coordinator for the seminal NIH Sequential Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) investigation[5] and was the principal investigator for an investigation sponsored by a Young Investigator Grant received from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD).[6] In 2002, he was awarded the New Investigator Award by the NIH New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit.

Dr. Petersen's clinical specialty is cognitive behaviorally based interventions for difficult-to-treat mood disorders. As part of his research work, he has been involved in developing various evidence-based psychotherapy treatment manuals. Dr. Petersen is active in providing clinical and research supervision to MGH psychology interns and psychiatry residents, and has mentored several undergraduate and graduate students during clinical and research practical placements.

[edit] Website

http://www.mghcme.org

[edit] External Links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Massachusetts General Hospital, Psychiatry Department Facts, 2006[1]
  2. ^ U.S.News & World Report, survey of America's Best Hospitals, 2007 [2]
  3. ^ "Reed Medical Reels in Mass General", Tradeshow Week, October 2007 [3]
  4. ^ Psychiatry Academy faculty list, 2008[4]
  5. ^ Journal of Psychiatric Research, Volume 40, Issue 1, February 2006, Pages 59-69[5]
  6. ^ NARSAD, Young Investigator Grant list, 2001[6]