Robert Bransfield MD DLFAPA likes to start off his presentations with a full and frank disclosure about potential conflicts of interest. After all, he is a well known psychiatrist and Associate Clinical Professor at Rutgers-RWJ Medical School, who is frequently also asked to lecture to doctors and psychiatrists on the causes & treatment of mental illness, so the need for transparency about commercial links & potential financial gain is essential. I’ve heard Robert’s disclosure and it goes like this:
“Patients pay me money in return for trying to help them.”
Cute, hey! No links to bigpharma that happen to have a new med for CNS infections, no patent pending, not even a book he wants to sell you! You see Robert, or Bob as he prefers to be called, lives and practices in an area of the US that has a very high rate of Lyme disease and came to be regarded as an international expert in tick borne diseases/ illnesses simply as a result of trying to understand and resolve his patients increasingly complex presentations. Based on his extensive clinical experience & research he is now regarded as the brain’s trust when it comes to the role of actual pathogens (spirochetes, viral, bacterial, fungal etc.) in the brain and their ability to cause every psychiatric diagnosis.
Sounds almost unbelievable right?
Well yes, the first time I heard Robert speak I experienced an intense internal tug of war:
‘He can’t be right!’… to… ‘Oh no! He is absolutely right!!’
In our Access the Experts Mental Health Webinar Series in July, Bob will present comprehensive and extraordinary evidence for infectious drivers of mental health problems. However, more importantly he helps us to identify the key warning signs that this issue is at play, in terms of case history, onset and progression patterns, biological markers. Being a clinician himself, talks tough on how the answer to chronic and complex infections is not more antibiotics.
Do you know how to treat an infected brain not just an inflamed one?
I am absolutely honoured to have Robert Bransfield MD presenting as part of our Access the Experts Mental Health Webinar Series in July on “Infectious drivers of psychiatric illness – the latest on best practice assessment & management”. Please don’t miss this event. Whether you treat patients with tick borne diseases or not this webinar is relevant to every practitioner.
“Access the Experts with Rachel Arthur” is a webinar series focusing on the best of Mental Health Education. Rachel interviews four hand-picked guest speakers about a particular area of expertise in Mental Health. Each is a clinician with years of experience (from a psychologist to a GP to psychiatrists) who Rachel has worked with and/or been mentored by and she is thrilled that these interviews create an avenue to share their incredible & very practical knowledge with a wider audience. Robert Bransfield’s Webinar 2: July 14th at 7pm (AEST)