MGH McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency Program

Today Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (TSE: 4502) and the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) announce the Honorees of the inaugural Innovators in Science Award for their commitment to and excellence in neuroscience research.

The Winner of the Senior Scientist Award is Shigetada Nakanishi, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Suntory Foundation for Life Sciences Bioorganic Research Institute in Japan. Nakanishi is honored for developing innovative cloning strategies for membrane embedded transmitter receptors and subsequent identification of functional genes encoding NMDA and G-protein coupled glutamate receptors.

The Winner of the Early-Career Scientist Award is Viviana Gradinaru, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. Gradinaru is honored for exemplary work in developing novel tools for neuroscience and using them to probe circuits underlying locomotion, reward, and sleep.

Also recognized as Award Finalists for discoveries ranging from neural mechanisms underlying cognitive function and emotional and social behaviors, the role of astrocytes at synapses in health and disease, and ion channels that enable somatosensation and pain perception are:

Senior Scientist Finalists:

Ben Barres, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine

David Julius, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Physiology, UC San Francisco

Michael Halassa, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, New York Universitye

Kay Tye, Ph.D., Whitehead Career Development Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technologye

These individuals will be honored at the 2017 Innovators in Science Award Ceremony and Symposium on November 28-29, at the New York Academy of Sciences in New York City.

See full post at https://www.takeda.com/newsroom/newsreleases/2017/innovators-in-science-award-honorees/

As any student approaches graduation, there is always the anxiety and uncertainty around the question, "What do I do know?" The MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency program has two new fellowships, one clinical and one for research, for residents to consider when planning their post residency lives.

The MGH Fellowship in Public and Community Psychiatry is a clinical fellowship linking academic medicine with community care. The new fellowship will provide advanced training at the PGY-5 level for psychiatrists who want to pursue a career in public sector psychiatry. Consistent with the mission of, and sponsored by Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, the fellowship is sited in the Erich Lindemann Mental Health Center, a community mental health center whose emphasis is rehabilitation and recovery. Click here for more details about this fellowship.

Contact Oliver Freudenreich, MD, Director, MGH Fellowship in Public and Community Psychiatry for additional information about the fellowship.

Interested in a career in research? The new Stanley Center Psychiatric Genetics and Neuroscience Fellowship may be the answer for you. This fellowship is intended to create opportunities for advanced study and research in Neuroscience, and to serve as a bridge between clinical training and the development of a research career. The Stanley Center fellowship provides a fellowship stipend for one to two years following residency training. This fellowship is only available to members or graduates of the MGH/McLean Research Concentration Program or Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard Longwood Residency Program. Additionally, applicants must establish collaboration with a participating mentor prior to the award date. Click here for the full list of application requirements.

Contact Jennifer Moran for for additional information about the Stanley Center Psychiatry Fellowship.

June of every year is a significant time for PGY4 residents, and not just because it brings warmer weather. June is the time when PGY4 residents give their Senior Talk, a brief presentation what each resident has learned during their residency before the start their post residency careers. The subject of each talk varies, from an exploration of how shame affects both the patient and the psychiatrist to how creating a genetically modified mouse can help further our understanding of eating disorders. For a complete list of the speakers and their topics, please refer to the bottom of the article.

Additionally, each June the MGH/McLean recognizes some of our residents for their outstanding work in the clinic as well as in the lab. Please see below for the full list of award recipients.

• Hackett Award – Jennifer Gatchel, MD, PhD
• Joyce and Richard Tedlow Award – Rachel Ross, MD, PhD
• Paul Howard Award – Stephanie Cincotta, MD
• Ed Messner Award – Heather Vestal, MD, MHS
• Anne Alonso Award – Kathryn Tompkins, MD
• Mel Kayce Award – Christina Brezing, MD
• Laughlin Award – Alex Keuroghlian, MD, MSc
• Outstanding Contribution to Neuroscience Award – Evan Macosko, MD, PhD

The Jonathan F. Borus Outstanding Early Career Educator Award in medical student education has been awarded since 2011 to a junior faculty member at Harvard Medical School who has demonstrated exceptional promise, initiative and commitment in the area of psychiatric education. The award is named in honor of Jonathan F. Borus MD, the Stanley Cobb Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus Chair of Psychiatry at the Brigham and Women’s and Faulkner Hospitals, Director of Medical Education at BWH and Co-Chair of the Partners Education Committee, who has exerted a major and lasting impact on psychiatric undergraduate and graduate education. In addition to being a master educator and educational leader, Borus is known widely for his generous mentorship and outspoken advocacy for generations of trainees who themselves have made important contributions to medical education.

Joseph Stoklosa (pictured above, Class of 2011), psychiatrist in charge of McLean’s Psychotic Disorders Unit, has been selected by the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Psychiatry Executive Committee as the 2014 co-recipient of the Jonathan F. Borus Early Outstanding Early Educator Award.

The seventeen new residents, with one joining the Class of 2017 as a PGY2, will arrive on June 5th, representing a diverse set of backgrounds and interests.

Sixteen new residents are gracing the halls of MGH and McLean Hospital. They are excited to begin their journey from medical student to independent clinician with the expert guidance of our faculty and senior residents.

Get to know the Current Residents in the entire MGH/McLean program. A few of our new residents are also engaged in research. Learn about the residents in our Research Concentration Program.

In June, 2013, some of our senior residents were honored for their outstanding work:

• Hackett Award – Avi Gerstenblith, MD
• Joyce Tedlow Award – Justin Chen, MD
• Paul Howard Award – Leah Bauer, MD
• Ed Messner Award – Justin Chen, MD
• Anne Alonso Award – Oriana Vesga Lopez, MD
• Mel Kayce Award – Benjamin Herbstman, MD, MHS
• Laughlin Award – John Taylor, M.D., M.B.A.
• Outstanding Contribution to Neuroscience Award – Mike Halassa, MD, PhD

In June, the Class of 2013 presented their work in the annual Senior Talks Symposium at McLean and MGH. At McLean, residents discussed the process of disruption and repair, identifying with patients, and the importance of screening and intervention for public health. Two complementary talks addressed the importance of peer education, and the value of peer support during residency. The talks in the Ether Dome at MGH ranged from a philosophical analysis of autonomy to neuroimaging in mouse models. Residents presented on complicating factors such as sociocultural issues, comorbidity, and trauma and their impact on public health.

Speakers are listed below.

• Benjamin Herbstman, M.D., M.H.S. - "Healing through Disruption and Repair"
• Christopher Keary, M.D. - "The Resident as Teacher: Experiences designing a resident teaching curriculum"
• Brian Hurley, M.D., M.B.A. - "Transforming the World by Providing Care to Patients who Use Substances"
• Ying Wang, M.D. - "Parallel Journeys - Learning and Growing Alongside My Patients"
• Lazaro Zayas, M.D. and Jonathan Moran, M.D., M.B.A. - "Are we all imbalanced? Attempting to achieve well-being in residency: Getting by with a little help from our friends"

• John Taylor, M.D., M.B.A. - "The Burden of Psychiatric Illness in High Utilizers of Healthcare Resources"
• Justin Chen, M.D. - "Toward suicide prevention in East Asia: A sociocultural, historical, and legal perspective"
• Avi Gerstenblith, M.D. - "Reflections"
• Michael Halassa, M.D., Ph.D. - "Why Psychiatry?"
• Amanda Green, M.D. - "Autonomy"
• Oriana Vesga Lopez, M.D. - "Remembering and working through"
• Elizabeth Levey, M.D. - "From the Ashes of Disaster: Growing up in Liberia"
• Leah Bauer, M.D. - "Three Extraordinary Women and What They’ve Taught Me about Life and Doctoring"

The sixteen new residents will arrive on June 6th, representing a diverse set of backgrounds and interests.

The December 12th event featured talks from leaders in psychiatry and neuroscience research, including a keynote presentation from Steve Hyman, former head of the National Institute for Mental Health, and currently Director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT).

A poster session featured work from current RCP residents and allow faculty, residents, and visiting applicants to share their thoughts and experience with the wide ranging possibilities for research in the Boston neuroscience and psychiatric communities.

• 10:30 - 11:00 | Coffee & Pastries
• 11:00 - 11:15 | Introductory remarks – Jerrold Rosenbaum & Scott Rauch
• 11:15 - 11:30 | Overview of the RCP – Justin Baker, Dost Ongur, and John Denninger
• 11:30 - 12:00 | Keynote Presentation – Steve Hyman
• 12:00 - 12:15 | Lunch Buffet
• 12:15 - 01:45 | Selected Scientific Presentations - Faculty
• 01:45 - 02:00 | Closing Remarks - Maurizio Fava & Shelly Greenfield
• 02:00 - 03:00 | Poster Session - Residents of the MGH/McLean RCP

The special occasion was celebrated at the Harvard Club on Saturday June 16th. The sixteen graduating residents of the MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Class of 2012, including the first three graduates of the Research Concentration Program, will move on to the next stage of their careers, transitioning to a broad array of exciting positions as psychiatry fellows, attendings, researchers, and outpatient practitioners.

All but one resident of the graduating class has elected to remain within the MGH and McLean communities following residency (see below). Amelia Dubovsky, who served as the 2011-2012 MGH Chief Resident, will be sorely missed as she moves on to a psychosomatics fellowship in Seattle, Washington.

Best of luck to all! We will follow your careers with pride and enthusiasm!

• Karen Adler, M.D. Attending Psychiatrist, Women’s Treatment Program at Hill Center, Family Therapist for Borderline Center, McLean

• Claire Brickell, M.D. MGH/McLean Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship

• Hannah Brown, M.D. MGH Schizophrenia Fellowship

• Argyro Caminis, M.D., M.P.H. Attending Psychiatrist, Short Term Unit, McLean

• Joan Camprodon, M.D., Ph.D. Director, Laboratory for Neuropsychiatry & Neuromodulation at MGH Director of Translational Research, Division of Neurotherapeutics at MGH; Neuropsychiatry & Behavioral Neurology Fellowship at MGH; Dupont -Warren Fellowship Award, MGH

• Nicole Christian, M.D. MGH/McLean Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship

• Jeffrey DeVido, M.D., M.T.S. Partners Healthcare Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship

• Amelia Dubovsky, M.D. Psychosomatics Fellowship, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

• Sharmin Ghaznavi, M.D., Ph.D. Dupont-Warren Fellowship Award; MGH Bipolar Clinical and Research Program; Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute Fellowship, Newton, MA

• Ellen House, M.D. MGH/McLean Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship

• Kelly Irwin, M.D. Attending Psychiatrist, MGH Cancer Center in Psychiatric Oncology and MGH Schizophrenia Program

• William Ruzicka, M.D., Ph.D. Attending Psychiatrist, McLean; Dupont-Warren Fellowship Award; APA/Pfizer MD/PhD Psychiatric Research Fellowship, McLean

• Brian Schulman, M.D. Attending Psychiatrist, MGH Bipolar Clinical and Research Program; MGH Center for Addiction Medicine. Advanced Training Program at Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Newton, MA

• Andrea Spencer, M.D. MGH/McLean Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship

• Christopher Tangren, M.D. Attending Psychiatrist, Dissociative Disorders and Trauma Program, McLean; Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute Fellowship, Newton, MA

Pictured: Claire Brickell discusses the topic of free will in the context of psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Over the past two weeks, the Class of 2012 presented their work in the annual Senior Talks Symposium at McLean and MGH. Topics during week one covered a wide range and included a discussion of evil and psychopathy, group psychotherapy for patients with psychotic disorders, the neural correlates of emotional experiences in depression, and the epigenetics of schizophrenia. Week two featured a discussion of combined neuromodulation and neuroimaging, the psychodynamics of psychopharmacology, and the rise of "Bath Salts" as a new illicit drug. The full schedule is listed below.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012 McLean, de Marneffe, Room 132

• 1:00 – Jeff DeVido, M.D. – The Question of Evil
• 1:30 – Karen Adler, M.D. – From object to subject: The role of the patient's experience of the therapist's subjectivity as a catalyst for change
• 2:00 – Ellen House, M.D. – A Safe Arena: Group Psychotherapy and Psychosis
• 2:30 – Chris Tangren, M.D. – The Couch and the Anchor: The Use of Metaphors in Psychotherapy
• 3:30 – Brad Ruzicka, M.D. Ph.D. – Nature, Nurture, and Chromatin Structure
• 4:00 – Claire Brickell, M.D. – Psychotherapy and Free Will
• 4:30 – Sharmin Ghaznavi, M.D., Ph.D. – Neural Evidence for the Struggle To Feel Good in Major Depression

Wednesday, June 13, 2012 MGH, Haber Auditorium

• 1:00 – Brian Schulman, M.D. – The Psychodynamics of Psychopharmacology
• 1:30 – Amelia Dubovsky, M.D. – A Brief History of Graduate Medical Education: the Birth of Duty Hours
• 2:00 – Hannah Brown, M.D. –Bath Salts: The Rise of a New Drug
• 2:30 – Joan Camprodon, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D. – Simultaneous combination of TMS and fMRI: a window into mechanisms of neuropsychiatric disease and recovery
• 3:15 – Argo Caminis, M.D. – At the Couch-side: Teaching for Medical Students and Junior Residents in Inpatient Psychiatry
• 3:45 – Nicole Christian, M.D. – Traditional Mental Health Care in a Post-Conflict Society
• 4:15 – Kelly Irwin, M.D. – Is everyone having a baby? Or is it just me?

In a study of responses to St. John's wort, sertraline, and placebo, Justin Chen, Class of 2013, and colleagues showed that patients who believed they were receiving active therapy rather than placebo obtained greater improvement, independent of treatment. They found that patient beliefs regarding treatment may have a stronger association with clinical outcome than the actual medication received, and the strength of this association may depend upon the particular combination of treatment guessed and treatment received.

Chen JA, Papakostas GI, Youn SJ, Baer L, Clain AJ, Fava M, Mischoulon D. (2011) Association between patient beliefs regarding assigned treatment and clinical response: reanalysis of data from the Hypericum Depression Trial Study Group. J Clin Psychiatry. 2011 Dec;72(12):1669-76.

Steve Seiner, MD, Associate Director of the Residency Program, won the APA Nancy C.A. Roeske Certificate of Excellence in Medical Student Teaching presented at the 2012 APA Meeting and again during the 2012 Harvard Medical School Psychiatry Medical Student Education Awards Ceremony. Oriana Vesga-Lopez, Class of 2013, was awarded one of the Harvard Medical School Resident Teaching Awards from the HMS Class of 2012.

Michael Halassa, Class of 2013, recently published a first author paper in Nature Neuroscience, describing work he carried out at MIT in the lab of Christopher Moore, now at Brown University.  By selective optical control of thalamic activity, Mike and colleagues demonstrated that sleep spindles can be causally generated with millisecond precision to understand their role in physiology and behavior. The work was carried out while Mike was a PGY1 and PGY2 in the Research Concentration Program.

Mike was also recently awarded a NIH pathway to independence career award (K99/R00) through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the first time such an award has been obtained by a current MGH/McLean resident.

In Spring 2011, the residency program was awarded an Institutional Research Education Grant (R25) from the National Institute for Mental Health. Under the leadership of Maurizio Fava MD and Shelly Greenfield MD, MPH and with support from over fifty junior and senior research faculty across our two campuses, this five-year, $250K education grant is designed to foster research training and mentorship for all residents in our program.  In addition, the grant allows the residency to further develop the Research Concentration Program, a program established in 2007 to optimize clinical and research training for residents with substantial research experience who plan to embark on psychiatric research careers.  John Denninger, MD, PhD, and Dost Ongur, MD, PhD will serve as co-director of the RCP, with recent graduate Justin Baker MD, PhD, serving as Associate Director.