CNTW Trust Wide Teaching on 'The Future of Lithium Prescribing' and our 'CaPE Clinic' with Dr Victoria Wing and Dr Becky Bates

Today, two of our NCMD representatives delivered some fantastic teaching for the Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, Trust Wide Teaching programme for post-graduate doctors training and practicing in psychiatry.

The first half of the session was led by Dr Victoria Wing, who spoke about 'The Future of Lithium Prescribing: A Collaborative Dialogue.' She covered a variety of topics including the history of lithium treatment for bipolar disorder, the lithium prescribing guidance and some of the prescribing challenges that come with lithium treatment. She also introduced us to her new lithium calculator developed within Team Lithium and Oisín Kavanagh. It differs from prior lithium calculators, which have not been adopted into clinical practice, as it was developed using a pharmacokinetic approach, whereas previous calculators were modelled from sets of patient data. During the session, attendees had the opportunity to try out and provide feedback on their thoughts regarding its potential for clinical application. A publication about this calculator is in preparation, and the next steps for this project will be to test the calculator in a wider data set. If you are interested in finding out more about lithium treatment in bipolar, please see the Team Lithium link below.

The second half of the session was led by Dr Becky Bates who is a trust grade doctor within our Care Pathway Enhancement Clinic. She started by presenting a thorough clinical case of bipolar affective disorder, and she also introduced the ASCEnD study; a multi-site study that is currently being delivered through our CaPE Clinic, in which participants with bipolar disorder are randomised to either aripiprazole and sertraline combination, or quetiapine. Dr Bates also highlighted the challenges that might arise when getting involved in clinical trials in psychiatry. If you are interested in finding out more about the ASCEnD study or our CaPE Clinic, please see the links below.

Thank you very much to Dr Victoria Wing and Dr Becky Bates for this insightful teaching for the Trust Wide (MedEd) Teaching programme!