Medical update for mental health

This course will cover the following topics:

Day 1

• Hypertension and hypercholesterolaemia: when should you start treatment in psychiatric patients?
• Type 2 diabetes mellitus: considering specific management approaches in psychiatric patient
• Weight gain in psychiatric patients: considering specific causes (including the role of psychiatric medication) and non-pharmacological and pharmacological approaches to its management
• Shortness of breath
• Smoking cessation in psychiatric patients: insight from approaches at the Maudsley Hospital
• Chest pain
• Prolonged QTc: when to take action and what to do
• Cardiac side effects of clozapine: focusing on tachycardia, postural hypotension, and myocarditis.

Day 2

• Clozapine and neutropaenia: when to act and what to do, special considerations for patients with benign ethnic neutropaenia, and specific discussion around the pros and cons of strategies to increase neutrophil counts
• Sepsis: identification and management
• Anaemia
• Weight loss: investigation thereof, and cancer screening in psychiatric patients
• Raised creatinine: the role of psychiatric medication and how renal failure may necessitate a change in your prescribing practice
• Electrolyte disturbance: causes in psychiatric patients, when to worry, and what to do about it
• Hypo- and hyper-thyroidism in psychiatric patients
• Deranged liver function tests: the role of psychiatric medication and how hepatic failure may necessitate a change in your prescribing practice
• Constipation with a particular focus on clozapine-induced gastrointestinal hypomotility
• Autoimmune encephalitis: how to identify it, and what to do when it is suspected
• Stroke: identification and management.