Topic Ideas

Addictions

• Drug treatment, tobacco policies, injection centres
  

• Alcoholism: illness vs choice; harm reduction & dependence
  

• Social regulation
  

Alternative/Complementary Therapies

• regulation, safety, evidence, training
  

Brain Science

• Translation of discovery to clinical domain
  

• Biology: disease models, quantum physics and self, imaging, brain mapping
  

Caregivers

• Family systems
  

• Social supports
  

Children

• Service provision, competence, guardianship, decision making, medication use
  

Clinical Decision Making

• Diagnostic issues
  

• Consent and capacity
  

• Restraints
  

• Diagnostic categories: DSM evolution, concept of a disorder
  

Clinician Health/Well-being

• Difficult patients
  

• Drug, alcohol abuse
  

• Isolation, support options
  

• Stress: burnout, “jaded”
  

Clinical Training

• Supervision
  

• Role definition / development
  

• Program development
  

• Education: training, quality, bias, power relationships, modeling, coercion, complicity
  

• Qualifications: credentialing, maintenance of certification, discipline/penalties
  

Community Psychiatry

• Rural vs urban: resources, supports, skilled care
  

• Community agencies: governance, access, staff qualifications, services, funding
  

• Mental illness: family burden, social values, cultural norms, myths, stigma, sexism, bigotry, discrimination, racism, media portrayals
  

• Poverty: impact on mental health, child/family, literacy, housing
  

• Deinstitutionalization: “through the cracks and on the streets”; specialty services, program monitoring, supportive/group homes
  

Culture

• ethnic/religious groups, culture bound syndromes, codes of ethics variations, translation
  

Ethics

• Codes of ethics in psychiatry
  

• Philosophical bases of psychiatric ethics
  

• Distinguishing features of psychiatric ethics
  

• Psychiatry as a profession
  

• Principals of care, free will, autonomy, insanity, irrationality, irresponsibility, trust, respect, informed consent, necessary harm, cognitive science
  

• Ethical traditions and systems
  

• Ethics committees
  

• Sexual rights, sexual abuse
  

• Suicide: legislation, morality, rational, assisted
  

Forensics

• violence, risk assessment/prediction, criminal responsibility, managing sexual offenders/predators, confinement, insanity defense, ‘chemical sanity’, police interrogation, false confession
  

Genetics

• gene identification, counseling, risk assessment, testing, screening, gene therapy
  

Geriatrics

• Cognitive impairment
  

• Special vulnerability
  

History of Psychiatry

• Remembering and learning from the past
  

Information

• Confidentiality, truth telling, safeguards, third parties, uses of information, information management, storage, sharing/disclosure
  

• Sources: internet, credibility, quality assurance
  

Insurance

• Information disclosure, refusal, independent medical exams, coercion, medico-legal reports, genetic risk factors
  

Law

• Case law, liability concerns, legislation, confinement, forced treatment, capacity, competence, confidentiality, safeguards, oversight, whistle-blowing, jurisdictional differences, future directions
  

Politics and Policy

• Policy: studies, commissions, reviews, implementation, resource projections, policy developed in response to tragedy or crisis
  

• Politics: funding, prioritization, communication, cooperation, being heard, under serviced areas, lobbying, pressures, barriers
  

• Resource allocation: underdeveloped countries, wealthier nations/systems
  

• Global mental health standards
  

• Advocacy
  

• Human rights
  

Power

• Use / abuse
  

• Corporate / institutional culture
  

• Political
  

Professional Roles

• Boundary maintenance / violations
  

• Discipline specific roles, self regulation, professional organizations / colleges
  

• Duties to patients, colleagues, organizations, systems, societies
  

• Mental health culture/norms: models, warning and reporting, incompetent/dangerous colleagues, intimidation by patients, mistakes
  

Rehabilitation

• Goals, supports, assistance, maintenance
  

Relationships

• Conflicts of interest, competing interests
  

• Industry sponsorship: individual, institutional, non-teaching centers, unreported studies, impact on research directions/reporting
  

Research

• Critical appraisal: nature of evidence
  

• Use of vulnerable subjects
  

• Oversight
  

• Consent, assent, social good, acceptable risk, coercion
  

Special Populations

• HIV/AIDS
  

• Cognitive impairment: mental retardation, brain injury, dementia
  

• Chronic pain
  

• Chronic illness
  

• Psycho-oncology
  

• End of life care
  

• Torture/war: PTSD, societal wounds, genocide, tribalism, nationalism
  

Spirituality

• Role of spirituality in health and healing
  

• Psychosis or grace?
  

• Denomination specific psychotherapy
  

Systems of Care

• Consumer representation, impact, lobbying, bias
  

• Mental Health Care Management: models, implementation, change
  

• Quality control
  

• Quackery
  

• Government / private insurance plan coverage for psychotherapy, drugs
  

• Psychologists prescribing medications?
  

Treatment

• Psychotherapies: appropriate type, adequate training, adequate funding and provision
  

• Physical manipulation of the brain: ECT, psychosurgery, vagus nerve implant, deep brain stimulation
  

• Hypnosis
  

• Inpatient treatment: privileges, confinement, restraints, returning illicit drugs, violence, assault, sexual activity, staff assault, staff abuse, coercion, infantilization, smoking
  

• Medication risk/benefit: TD, newer antipsychotics, depot formulations, quick dissolve, drug approval process, costs/pharmacare
  

• Novel treatments: transcranial magnetic stimulation
  

• Outpatient treatment: ACT teams, termination of care, risk of abuse/assault/false allegation
  

• Patient/Client: refusing medications/treatment, variable competence, consent, substitute decision making, lack of insight, compliance
  

• Peer support
  

• Placebo effect