From the Editor

Enhancing psychiatric care: A decade of progress

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On our 10th anniversary, we continue to innovate in providing you with clinical updates


 

References

One of the greatest challenges for busy clinicians, such as Current Psychiatry readers, is keeping up with advances in the field of psychiatry in our limited available time. Because psychiatry is one of the most rapidly expanding medical specialties, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and other mental health clinicians recognize the importance of ongoing self-driven learning to make sure they are practicing the latest standards of care in diagnosis and treatment.

Although continuously acquiring new knowledge that can improve patient care is stimulating and necessary, it also may be intimidating because most medical journals are packed with studies with arcane methodology, complicated designs, complex statistics, dense tables, and busy figures. Wading through the literature can be time-consuming—and even exhausting—for a busy clinician with limited time to learn the latest research findings, and this approach is not always guaranteed to provide the relevant “take-home nuggets” that can enhance clinical practice.

Enter Current Psychiatry. Established in 2002 as the brainchild of former University of Cincinnati Department of Psychiatry Chair Randy Hillard, MD (now Editor-in-Chief Emeritus) and publisher Thomas Pizor, Current Psychiatry was designed precisely to fill this vital unmet need for busy clinical psychiatrists.1 Current Psychiatry provides practical, peer-reviewed, evidence-based reviews that are highly relevant to the realities of clinical psychiatric practice. Nationally recognized experts write articles about topics identified as “valued” by practitioners based on systematic surveys of clinicians in various community settings. A diverse editorial board of prominent academic teachers and researchers provides an ongoing stream of diverse articles and perspectives that distill the emerging science and practice of psychiatry into immediately useful applications.

From our first issue, Current Psychiatry has presented information that readers could use to care for their patients, in articles such as:

  • Using antipsychotics in patients with dementia (Kasckow JW, et al; February 2004)
  • How to reduce mania risk when prescribing stimulants (Dubovsky SL, et al; October 2005)
  • Hypnotics and driving: FDA action, clinical trials show need for precautions (Freeman B, et al; April 2007)
  • Fibromyalgia: Psychiatric drugs target CNS-linked symptoms (Stanford SB; March 2009)
  • The re-emerging role of therapeutic neuromodulation (Janicak PG, et al; November 2010)

The impact has been spectacular. As Current Psychiatry celebrates its 10th anniversary this month, we can relish its remarkable growth and success. In independent readership surveys, Current Psychiatry has grown to become the most widely read non-tabloid psychiatry journal.2 As Editor-in-Chief, I derive great satisfaction from the rave reviews I receive from my colleagues around the country about how they regard Current Psychiatry as their number 1 resource for clinical updates. Stellar feedback such as this indicates that Current Psychiatry clearly meets clinicians’ educational needs.

However, we are not resting on our laurels. Current Psychiatry has continued to innovate and develop new approaches to ongoing self-education by growing its online presence. The offerings at CurrentPsychiatry.com have steadily increased to include the following features:

Online-exclusive content. CurrentPsychiatry.com provides additional resources such as tables, boxes, algorithms, and/or figures related to articles from the printed edition. Later this year, as our 10th anniversary initiative for you, our readers, Current Psychiatry will offer complete online-exclusive articles that will be listed on the table of contents but published only on CurrentPsychiatry.com.

Multimedia library. Every month, the author of 1 article is invited to participate in a brief (5- to 10-minute) audiocast in which he or she provides additional commentary on clinical topics related to the article. This library currently houses nearly 50 audiocasts. Available at CurrentPsychiatry.com/pages.asp?id=6412.

Continuing Medical Education (CME). This section of our Web site provides peer-reviewed education programs that offer visitors the opportunity to earn free CME credits on a range of clinical topics, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and more. Available at CurrentPsychiatry.com/pages_cme.asp.

Supplements. Recent topics covered in these peer-reviewed, non-CME programs include managing schizophrenia, transcranial magnetic stimulation for depression, and more. Available at CurrentPsychiatry.com/pages_supplement.asp.

Going beyond our printed and online content, Current Psychiatry serves our readers’ educational needs through CME meetings such as the annual Psychiatry Update, which is hosted in conjunction with the American Academy of Clinical Psychiatrists. The next meeting will take place March 29 to 31, 2012 in Chicago, IL and will offer a maximum of 18 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM (For more information, click here.). In addition, Current Psychiatry co-sponsors the University of Cincinnati’s Annual Psychopharmacology Update, which is scheduled for October 20, 2012 in Cincinnati, OH, offering AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM.

One of the gratifying aspects of producing a highly relevant educational vehicle such as Current Psychiatry is that my trainees at the University of Cincinnati tell me how useful they find it for their clinical practice. I am glad that they already have developed the good habit of reading Current Psychiatry from cover to cover during their training!

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