Transplant Psychiatry: Maybe a step forward?

[whopper]

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The APA online CME courses had a Transplant Psychiatry lecture. As I've complained about before I've been in several prior situations where another provider asked me to do a transplant psych evaluation despite never seeing, being education on, or seeing a formal method to do a transplant psych evaluation.

But the lecture refers viewers to the "Stanford Integrated Psychosocial Assessment for Transplantation." Anyone familiar with it?

 

[Stagg737]

The APA online CME courses had a Transplant Psychiatry lecture. As I've complained about before I've been in several prior situations where another provider asked me to do a transplant psych evaluation despite never seeing, being education on, or seeing a formal method to do a transplant psych evaluation.

But the lecture refers viewers to the "Stanford Integrated Psychosocial Assessment for Transplantation." Anyone familiar with it?

Yes, I'm very familiar with it as we use a modified version of it where I'm at (academic center with robust transplant service in multiple areas). Very helpful in terms of creating a more objective scoring rubric, and simple enough that it can be done by non-psychiatrists. Not sure on the data for it, but does help with organization of the interview.

We are mainly evaluating for any current major red flags that would contraindicate transplant (active substance use, poorly controlled SMI, lack of medication compliance, neurocog barriers to recovery/maintenance, etc) and identifying patients who should be following in our clinic through the process. I'd say 3/4 patients I see get scored as a "good" candidate, while 1/4 have some sort of ongoing issue that raises significant concerns. We also look at everything in context of support system, which one can argue can be done by a SW, but we talk to their primary support person(s) about their understanding of the medical aspects as well which can significantly change the patient's candidacy in some circumstances.