1 Boring Old Man

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Posted on Monday 6 December 2010

HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
^{Department of Continuing Education}
PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY 2011: A MASTER CLASS
^{April 29-30,2011}

FRIDAY		SATURDAY

^{Neurobiology of Psychiatric Syndromes,Normal Attachment and Attachment Disorders}	^{Carl Salzman}	^{Advances in Sleep Disorders}	^{John Winkelman}

^{Mechanisms of Schizophrenia: Therapeutic Implications}	^{Daniel Weinberger}	^{Traditional and New Approaches to Treating Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders}	^{David Sheehan}

^{Treatment of Schizophrenia: Current Limitations and Future Strategies}	^{Jeffrey Lieberman}	^{Women’s Mental Health Issues: Premenstrual Disorders and Psychiatric Conditions in Pregnancy and After Delivery}	^{Kimberly Yonkers}

^{Bipolar Disorder: Treatment of Mania}	^{Frederick Goodwin}	^{Treatment of Alcohol and Drug Abuse}	^{Roger Weiss}

^{Bipolar Disorder: Current and Emerging Treatments for Depression}	^{Nassir Ghaemi}	^{Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology}	^{Barbara Coffey}

^{Neurobiology of Depression: Therapeutic Implications}	^{Charles Nemeroff}	^{Geriatric Psychopharmacology}	^{Carl Salzman}

^{New Strategies for Treatment Resistant Depression}	^{Alan Schatzberg}

Having attended CME presentations like this for a career, it’s hard not to be cynical. CME [Continuing Medical Education] is a licensure requirement for Physicians so we’ve all sat through them chronically. This is standard fare ["neurobiology of …" "advances in …" "new strategies for …"] so it’s a bit hard to see what the MASTER part is in A MASTER CLASS. Every few years, it’s off for a review of ["current trends in"] psychopharmacology. It’s often un-noticed that Psychiatry is one of the few medical specialties where all drugs can be covered in a couple of sessions. This CME course covers them all [in Internal Medicine, it would take months].

My motive in showing this program is to highlight how hard it is to be tarnished by scandal in Academic Psychiatry – Nemeroff and Schatzberg remain on the podium! But there’s more to say. First, something good: "The course organizers have not and will not apply for educational grants to support this educational program." That’s a decent change. The fact that everyone on this faculty is in some way involved with or supported by Pharmaceutical Companies is bothersome, but not specifically applicable to this program.

Just two other points. This program could’ve been in 1974 when I started my residency, or 2004 when I retired, or now. The topics are the same. The slides might be different – neurons with different neurotransmitters, different drug names maybe, a few different classes of drugs. Dr. Schatzberg can talk about adding Atypical Antipsychotics or some new odd brain things, but the march of progress wouldn’t look like it was worth billions in research money and drug company profits. The second point is that it’s easy to see why the drug companies are so hot to involve themselves with presenters at such conferences. The attendees are probably going to follow what these experts say, until their next pharmacology review.

Peggi

December 6, 2010 | 2:49 PM

If all these drugs are so effective, why on earth do we have exponentially increasing rates of people suffering from MDD and dramatic increases in children hospitalized for psychiatric care?
Carl

December 8, 2010 | 1:42 PM

Goodness Mickey – it is a MASTER class because it was at HAHVAHD. Had it been hosted at Yale, it would have been a “primer”, an “introductory” at, perhaps Duke.

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