Newly Released Psychiatry Handbook Published by Residents and Faculty at MGH/McLean

James Niels Rosenquist, MD, PhD and Sherry Nykiel, MD, both 2009 graduates of the MGH/McLean adult psychiatry program, have spearheaded the publication of the recently released “Massachusetts General Hospital/McLean Handbook to Psychiatry.”

During the PGY-2 year, Niels and Sherry recognized the demand for a pocket psychiatric reference and began to pursue the project together, along with the support of the department and fellow residents in the program. Niels first conceived of the project after speaking with an editor at Lippincott Williams & Wilkin at the American Psychiatric Association Meeting during his PGY-1 year. Niels recalls, “the support from the residency administration was fantastic. Drs. Jerry Rosenbaum and Scott Rauch were both very kind to facilitate the use of the MGH and McLean names and write the introduction. Dr. Kathy Sanders was there from day one of the project and helped out with matching people with advisors and spreading word of the book to the residents.”

Niels and Sherry worked with over forty MGH/McLean psychiatry residents and over forty faculty members from both hospitals over the next few years. Sherry found the experience was a unique opportunity to get to know her fellow residents: “I particularly enjoyed the opportunity it gave me to get to know the PGY-1 class and to have them able to work on something that helped them to feel like psychiatrists that early in their training. Niels has felt the same way: “Working on this with such a large group of tremendously talented individuals was a highlight of residency for me. Residents at the PGY-1 level worked with senior level attending psychiatrists, and, in some cases, many used this work as the first step in a long- term collaboration.”

The goal of the handbook was to have a quick reference that allowed for faster and detailed access to a wide variety of trainees in medicine and the allied health sciences. Since its release, the book has already sold over 1000 copies within the first five weeks of publication. Copies of the book were also presented to the psychiatry faculty in Uganda, where Niels is currently working as a research fellow.

Dr David Bangsberg (left), head of MGH's Global health Program, Dr Samuel Maling (center), Chief Psychiatrist at Mbarara hospital, and Dr. Nozmo Mukiibi (right), Acting Dean of Mbarara Medical School

This summer, Niels had the opportunity to travel to Uganda to explore partnerships between MGH and the Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) school of medicine. The head of MGH global health, David Bangsberg kindly offered to purchase a number of copies of the book to donate to the psychiatry department there. While there are obviously a number of areas that were not designed for mental health in the Ugandan context, the staff members were quite happy with a significant amount of reference material, particularly around drug information. Notably, the faculty and staff started talking among themselves about creating a modified version of the book for local use, which would be really neat to see. Niels is splitting his time between the Health Policy Department at Harvard University and research at MGH with Jordan Smoller.

Sherry is working as the McLean-based Partners addiction fellow.  She has enjoyed using the book to continue teaching medical students and residents.

Niels and Sherry say that they would like future editions of the handbook to be similarly a dynamic and residency-run project and look forward to working with the next group of residents in future editions of the book.