Description
Recording of Webinar 1 of Access the Experts
“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.
Dr William Ferguson – MBCHb, BHB, Dip Obs, FRNZCGP
“Combining pharmaceutical, complementary and genetic approaches to depression – the brave new frontier of individualised treatment”
William is a doctor with a difference. It is apparent to everyone who knows William that his patients are his great teachers and simultaneously his great motivators for ongoing learning, and in no area is this more striking than among his mental health patients. With over 30 years experience working at the coalface of General Practice in NZ with a special interest in mental health, he has a wealth of real wold experience to draw from.
William is truly integrative. While many practitioners call themselves ‘integrative’, often instead they have swapped pharmaceuticals for nutraceuticals without the necessary paradigm shift or abandoned medicine generally – its weaknesses but also its strengths. William believes medical treatments have an important role in many cases and with clinical experience, can coherently argue when and where an antidepressant, for example, would be the best choice and when it perhaps shouldn’t be the first line or stand alone approach.
In his pursuit of knowledge, William prefers to take the road less traveled. Not a fan of following the majority, company generated protocols, or reducing his views to only one school of thought, William seeks out new information constantly and like any good scientist, takes that back to the clinic to apply it and see what sort of difference it can make.
In this interview, Rachel will be asking William about:
- Which research discoveries and clinical experiences have had the biggest impact on the way he treats depressed patients.
- How to identify key clues about patient’s neurochemistry?
- When to incorporate gene profiling (and what are the strengths and weaknesses of our limited knowledge about this at this time)?
This webinar can be purchased individually for $66 OR purchase the webinar series (4 x webinars) as a package for $176 and SAVE $88!