Wednesdays

1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

Online

1/19, 1/26, 2/2, 2/16 & 2/23 (no class 2/9)

Five Sessions 

This course is offered online via the easy-to-use Zoom program.

Medical knowledge continues to evolve. This course features four accomplished physicians who will discuss the latest research in their specialties.

Session One, Jan 19: Advanced Care Planning- What Is Wrong With It? 

Dr. Benjamin Liptzin is Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at Tufts University School of Medicine.  For 25 years he was Chair of Psychiatry at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA.  Prior to that he was Director of Geriatric Psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA and Director of the Geriatric Education Center at Harvard Medical School.  He received the Jack Weinberg Award in Geriatric Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association and the Distinguished Faculty Award from Tufts. He has published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters.

Session Two, Jan 26: Aid in Dying

Dr. Lewis Cohen is a Professor Emeritus at Tufts University School of Medicine and a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts-Baystate Medical School.  He is a palliative medicine researcher with over 100 academic publications relating to the integration of bioethics, nephrology, psychiatry, and the end of life.  Lew is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Medicine and Health (2008), a Soros Faculty Scholar Award, two Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency awards (2008, 2015), and a Bogliasco Fellowship for the Arts and Humanity (2014).   He is the author of A Dignified Ending (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) and No Good Deed: A Story of Medicine, Murder Accusations, and the Debate over How We Die (HarperCollins, 2010), a contributor to the Atlantic, Slate, and Huffington Post, and is the editor of a textbook, Dissociative Identity Disorder: Theoretical and Treatment Controversies (Jason Aronson, Inc., 1995). 

Session Three, Feb 2: A Completed Life and End of Life Care 

Dr. Michael Germain graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, obtained his medical degree from the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and was an intern and resident in Medicine at Cambridge Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He pursued a nephrology fellowship at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, Subspecialty, Nephrology.

Dr Germain has practiced at Baystate Health and multiple affiliated hospitals for over 40 years.  He is an approved transplant nephrologist in the United Network of Organ Sharing and maintains memberships in multiple professional organizations, including the International Society of Nephrology and the International Society of Peritoneal Dialysis.  Dr. Germain’s major research interests include methods of slowing progression of chronic renal failure, exercise and anemia in patients with chronic kidney disease, loss of function in renal transplant patients and renal palliative care.

No Class on Feb 9

Session Four, Feb 16: Psychedelics in Psychiatry

Dr. Franklin King received his MD from the University of Massachusetts and completed residency in psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital - McLean Hospital combined program, serving as consult-liaison Chief Resident and being awarded the annual Thomas P. Hackett Award.  Following graduation, he completed a fellowship in consult-liaison psychiatry as well as a research fellowship with then-MGH Cardiac Psychiatry Research Program.  His primary interest is in the treatment of psychosomatic and functional conditions as well as the utilization of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to treat a variety of chronic psychiatric conditions.  He is currently involved in the development of a neuroimaging study using psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for depression. In addition, he remains involved in teaching and supervising residents and fellows, and practices clinically as staff psychiatrist at the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders.

Session Five, Feb 23: Precision Medicine: Biomarkers, Genetics, Targeted Therapies and Renaming Diseases with Dr. Michael Germain

Dr. Shirin Nash, moderator, is a retired pathologist who received her medical education in Mumbai, India and completed her residency in Pathology in Calgary, Canada.  She did a Fellowship in Gastrointestinal and Hepatic Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.  She is a published author in her field, has held several academic posts in Massachusetts, and is the Founding Director of The Pathology Residency Program at Bay State Medical Center (now Baystate Health) in Springfield. 

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