SPECT scans and the future of psychiatry?

[sasevan]

Hi everyone (MD/DOs, PhD/PsyDs, et al.)

I'm currently reading Daniel G. Amen, M.D.'s "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life."
Sounds to me like a good development for the field and I'm interested in what you may know about Amen's views and what you think about them, specifically:

How are Amen's research findings/clinical practice generally viewed in the field?

Are SPECT scans and other functunal (and structural, for that matter) scans becoming (or will be) routine in psychiatry?

Do current psychiatry residency programs train one in these procedures?

Thanks in advance.

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[Poety]

great questions sas - I'm currently interviewing and I've noticed that highly funded or psychiatric self standing type programs DO have a lot of imaging testing going on along with research. For instance, say what you will, but the IOL in Hartford has one of 3 fMRI's devoted to psychiatry and the residents there are able to consult psychology for assessment when a patient has them stumped or they would like to learn more about the neuro imaging that goes along with a certain patient. At IOL they are taught by the researchers how to interpret these tests.

Now, a lot of other places I've interviewed at do not have this option, or if they do they don't offer training in it per se, but perhaps just curb consults on what the tests mean. I think the larger institutes with a really solid psych program will tend to offer this type of testing exposure to residents whereas the smaller programs won't. Also, research oriented places have a lot of psychologists that you can team up with to learn more about studies (imaging, clinical, etc)

I hope this helps a little bit - sorry I can't give you more information!

 

[sasevan]

Hi Poety,
Thanks for the info.
This sounds to me like a good development and I was hoping that residency programs would be on board.
I'm glad to hear that that's the case at Hartford and maybe some of the other bigger sites.