LAUSR

Consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatrists are often called upon to educate non-psychiatrists on areas related to the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of mental health disorders. Teaching by non-psychiatrists greatly benefits C-L psychiatric rotations through collaborative learning and enhancing trainee understanding of the medical comorbidities commonly encountered in psychiatric patients [1]. Neuroradiology is one such field where attending psychiatrists, and trainees alike, may learn about neuroanatomy and its pathology from a subspecialty with whom psychiatrists rarely interface. Interdisciplinary teaching in modern medicine may allow physicians of diverse specialties to harness existing resources in the face of physician shortages, time constraints, and limited availability of subspecialty expertise. Medical programs across the country have developed interdisciplinary educational frameworks to address these needs [2, 3]. Psychiatrists have long advocated for augmentation of specifically neuroradiology education in psychiatry residency training, as neuroradiology curricula have been noted as effective educational means to increase interest and comfort in appraising imaging studies among psychiatry residents [4, 5]. A survey by Reardon et al. of 57 psychiatry program directors found that half of the programs surveyed utilized neuroradiology rounds or consultation as an educational training method [6]. Despite this, a survey of psychiatry residents showed a desire for more education in this area with only 7% of the 183 respondents reporting adequate training in neuroradiology [7]. By contrast, a similar survey of neurology program directors found that 66% of programs had a formal neuroimaging curriculum and neurology residents of responding programs spent a median of 1 h per week with a neuroradiologist [8]. For C-L psychiatrists in particular, the prevalence of neuropsychiatric presentations in patients seen often requires brain imaging as a component of the diagnostic workup. Understanding indications for imaging in patients is critical for C-L psychiatrists in making thoughtful and evidencebased recommendations to medical and surgical teams. And the ability to read and critically assess this imaging holds utility not only when subspecialty experts are unavailable but also when confirming the initial reviewer’s diagnostic impressions. In this manuscript, we present our institution’s Interdisciplinary C-L Psychiatry Neuroradiology Conference. We will outline the course of its development to aid in the dissemination for potential implementation at other institutions. Using illustrative MRI and CT scans, we will portray three notable patients who were reviewed with the neuroradiology team to delineate the conference process and illustrate examples of teaching points in both typical and unusual cases. These cases will provide a model for educators in the development of similar interdisciplinary training.