We hope you will join us on November 18, 2022 for the 39th Annual Pittsburgh Schizophrenia Conference. This virtual conference will take place via Zoom. Zoom links, instructions, and information will be sent out a day prior to the event.

The conference is designed to disseminate the latest clinical and research findings to a wide audience: psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians, including nurses, social workers, psychologists, service coordinators, researchers, patients and their relatives, mental health policy administrators and others who intend to keep current regarding treatment and research in schizophrenia.

Featured speakers for this year's conference are Anantha Shekhar, MD, PhD, Senior Vice Chancellor for the Health Sciences and the John and Gertrude Petersen Dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and Robert Heinssen, PhD, ABPP, Senior Advisor to the Office of the Director at the National Institute of Mental Health and this year’s Hogarty awardee and lecturer. The conference also includes sessions led by Department of Psychiatry faculty including Drs. K.N. Roy Chengappa, Jessica Gannon, and Fabio Ferrarelli.

During the breaks today the Comprehensive Recovery Services art sale will be available for you to view. This annual event has adapted with the times, and we have gone virtual. We invite you to click the link that will be provided prior to the conference, and view the artwork presented in the slides. The artwork will be available for purchase between 8:30 AM and 4:00 PM during the conference on Friday, November 18th. All items are created by clients of the Psych Rehab Art Therapy Program at the Oxford Building. The artists set their own prices and 100 % of the proceeds go directly to the artists.

Continuing Education Credits. CME and CEU credits are available. At the completion of this program, participants should be able to:

1. Review the consideration of a novel drug class of medications for schizophrenia: muscarinic receptor agonists.

2. Address tobacco cessation and reduce stigma for individuals with mental illness.

3. Assess how science informs clinical practice and how clinical practice informs science – the case for coordinated specialty care in early psychoses.

4. Recognize and review what sleep abnormalities mean for people with schizophrenia and to people at high risk for the development of psychoses.

5. Recognize and discuss the impact of COVID-19 on clozapine metabolism, and the potential for drugdrug interactions between Clozapine and Paxlovid.

Registration. Click here to view the brochure and for information on how to register for this event. 

Questions? Please contact Doreen Barkowitz at barkowitzdh@upmc.edu. 

Recovery and Wellness: The Journey Starts Here
A Joint Effort Sponsored by Community Care Behavioral Health Organization and UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital