Antidepressant expert creates user-friendly book
Rothschild editor of ‘The Evidence-Based Guide to Antidepressant Medications’
By Sandra Gray
UMass Medical School Communications |
Jan. 19, 2012 |
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| | Anthony Rothschild, MD, (left) has edited
The Evidence-Based Guide to Antidepressant Medications. |
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Internationally renowned depression expert Anthony Rothschild, MD,
the Irving S. and Betty Brudnick Endowed Chair in Psychiatry and professor of psychiatry, has created a user-friendly text that digests the current research into best practices with antidepressants to help clinicians who may or may not be mental health experts.
The Evidence-Based Guide to Antidepressant Medications, published in December by American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc., is designed to be a comprehensive yet concise and understandable guide that meets the needs of a wide variety of clinicians, including those who may not specialize in mental health, and who may not be familiar with the extensive medical literature on the antidepressant pharmacopeia.
“We realized that, particularly with these kinds of medications, practitioners were not always applying evidence in the literature to the treatment of patients,” noted Dr. Rothschild, who is director of the Center for Psychopharmacologic Research and Treatment. “This book helps them do that.”
Covering both Food & Drug Administration approved and off-label uses for antidepressants, The Evidence-Based Guide to Antidepressant Medications addresses the full range of depressive orders and the full range of patients who experience them across the lifespan. These include children and adolescents, pregnant and lactating mothers, the elderly, and patients of all ages who are being treated for other physical and mental illnesses at the same time they are experiencing depression.
“The book is written in a reader-friendly way to be useful to a wide range of clinicians,” said Rothschild. “Some will keep the book as a reference on their bookshelf, while others will read it cover to cover.”
Rothschild collaborated with content experts from across the country and was gratified to find several chapter authors right among his colleagues in the Department of Psychiatry at UMass Medical School and UMass Memorial Health Care. They include Jean A. Frazier, MD, the Robert M. and Shirley S. Siff Chair in Autism and professor of psychiatry and pediatrics; and Mary Ahn, MD, Nancy Byatt, DO, and Kristina Deligiannidis, MD, all assistant professors of psychiatry.
Another colleague, former UMMS Chair of Psychiatry Paul Appelbaum, MD, now the Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Law at Columbia University, said, “My copy is sure to be one of the best-thumbed reference books on my shelves.”
Rothschild, who has authored dozens of scholarly papers and has successfully treated hundreds of patients, looks forward to presenting the book at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in May. “Editing a book like this is a nice way to contribute to the field beyond my own research and publications in the medical literature, and to ultimately benefit many more patients than those I see myself,” he concluded.
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