Updates about psychiatry and our practice.
What TMS predictors of outcome in bipolar depression and unipolar major depression can we use to identify those who are likely to respond to treatment? An article in 2017 in the journal Clinical Neurophysiology reports data from a very large series of patients with both types of depression who were treated with TMS. The study looked at records from 105 …
Four distinct psychiatric disorders – autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression – have shared gene expression, according to research published online Feb. 8 in the journal Science. Researchers arrived at the study’s findings by analyzing RNA in 700 tissue samples from the brains of dead people who had autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression or alcohol abuse disorder, then comparing those samples …
Bob Post (one of the most eminent psychiatrists of our time) published a passionate article in the March 2018 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association in support of the importance of specialty care for bipolar disorder. Of course, we couldn’t agree more. That is one of the reasons we founded the clinic. We saw that specialty care …
Yesterday was a typical day with regard to pharmacy issues. Four of my patients received incorrect information from their pharmacy (Walgreens and CVS seem to be the most common ones) and asked me to call their pharmacy to solve a problem that the pharmacy claimed was my fault, in each case I had to sit on hold for 10 to …
Posted: February 5, 2018 Job Location: Hayes Valley, San Francisco, California 94102 We have a new postdoctoral psychologist job opening in our Hayes Valley office in San Francisco. If you have experience in cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness based therapy and an interest in learning other evidence-based treatments for mood and anxiety disorders you may be interested in applying for …
In the beginning of this year we sent out an invitation to our patient’s to sign up for the Foundations of Wellbeing program developed by neuroscientist Rick Hanson and were very pleased by the response. Since then we’ve been hearing from those who signed up that the program has had a significant effect on their mental health. A representative comment …
Finding a psychiatrist is often hard. If you have insurance, you have paid that company to provide you with access to care. They are legally required to have an adequate list of psychiatrists who can provide care to the people they insure. They often don’t do that. Many of them have “phantom networks” – lists of people who are supposed …
Cognitive problems are the rule rather than the exception for people with bipolar disorder and so the idea of brain training for bipolar is an attractive one. There are a number of commercially available brain training courses. Probably one of the most comprehensive was developed by a company called Posit Science. Its current flagship product is a subscription-based online program …
New patient consultations at Gateway are expensive, in large part because of the hidden or invisible work that takes place as part of the consultation process. The table below contrasts the visible work, which is contained in the two sessions with clinicians, to the hidden work done by clinical and nonclinical staff in order to make those two in person …
A patient with treatment resistant depression and an excellent initial response to TMS asked me about the value of maintenance TMS. The question is a reasonable one given what we know generally about the treatment of chronic and/or treatment resistant depression. Almost all of the effective treatments (psychotherapy, medications, ECT, etcetera) have acute and maintenance treatment components. And for all …
