The Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, UNSW and the Neuropsychiatric Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital, recently co-hosted the inaugural Neuropsychiatry Training Weekend over the 14th and 15th of March. By all accounts, the event was a great success with the majority of participants reporting a rewarding professional development experience. The neuropsychiatric approach has become increasingly relevant in recent years to general psychiatrists, psychiatric trainees, neurologists and neuroscientists alike, and this weekend was packed with lectures aiming to provide a foundation of knowledge relevant to such an approach. Participants were given access to key readings from each of the speakers; all opinion leaders in their respective areas of practice and research, allowing them to build on the content delivered in the weekend in their own time.
The program opened with an afternoon introducing key topics in the basic sciences with lectures in neurochemistry, neurogenetics and neuroanatomy, all presented in an expert manner by speakers comfortable in the translational potential of their fields. Many attendees were heard to comment on their surprise at hearing non-clinical subject matter dealt with in such an engaging and contemporary manner. The final workshop on neuroimaging provided a wonderful segue into the next days’ clinically focussed content.
Day two brought with it engaging, cutting-edge lectures that aimed to familiarise attendees with key developments in neurotherapeutics, with a specific focus on the emerging field of brain stimulation therapies. An interactive workshop on drug-induced movement disorders covered issues relevant to all specialist care providers in attendance, building on and updating core clinical skills in this area. The final module of the weekend was in many ways the highlight providing state of the art overviews in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, epilepsy and intellectual disability neuropsychiatry, all presented by practitioners with a wealth of clinical knowledge and academic expertise covering their respective topics with aplomb.
All in all, this was a weekend not be missed, with an emphasis on the delivery of contemporary teaching in neuropsychiatry, such educational weekends being few and far between.
Speakers at the 2014 Neuropsychiatry Training Weekend were Professor Perminder Sachdev, Professor Iain McGregor, Dr Karen Mather, A/Prof Pascal Carrive, Professor Colleen Loo, Dr Adith Mohan, Dr Paul Silberstein, Dr Clement Loy, A/Prof Ernest Somerville and A/Prof Julian Trollor.
View presentations from speakers here.
To receive updates on future events, please email Heidi Mitchell.
