ISRounds: A Virtual International Mental Health Educational Series – for FREE!
World class experts share their wisdom and expertise to support the clinical work and professional development of mental health professionals in Israel and around the globe. Other medical and human service professionals are cordially invited.
ISRounds programs are apolitical, non-commercial, and non-sectarian.
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Course Overview
This round of ISRounds is a “hands-on” introduction to neurobehavioral therapy (NBT), an effective methodology that therapists, psychiatrists, neurologists and other physicians can utilize to alleviate the suffering of patients who obsess and worry about somatic symptoms without a clear organic basis. Such symptoms include memory loss, fuzziness, weakness, unusual spells and seizures and other neuromuscular concerns that are not associated with confirmatory physical, laboratory or imaging findings.
Our ISRounds Expert, Dr. Curt LaFrance, is the primary clinician and researcher who developed NBT.
Dr. Tamara Fischl will present a clinical example of a functional neurological disorder in an Israeli patient. This case will be reviewed and discussed by Dr. LaFrance, in conjunction with a clinically useful how-to presentation designed to teach clinicians to assess, understand and treat functional neurological symptoms.
A question-and-answer session will follow Dr. LaFrance’s case-informed presentation.
W. Curt LaFrance Jr., MD, MPH, FAAN, FANPA, DLFAPA, FAES
W. Curt LaFrance Jr, MD, MPH, FAAN, FANPA, DLFAPA, FAES is professor of psychiatry and neurology at Brown University Alpert Medical School and runs the neuropsychiatry and behavioral neurology clinic at Rhode Island Hospital. He is Director of the VA Mind Brain Program, Program Director for VA National Expert Consultation & Specialized Services Neuropsychiatry Clinic, and staff physician at the Providence VAMC.
He studied at Wake Forest University (B.A. in Psychology), Medical College of Georgia (M.D.) and Brown University (MPH). He trained in Brown’s combined neurology/psychiatry residency and is double boarded. He is the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Neuropsychiatry Commission Chair and has chaired ILAE and American Epilepsy Society NES Task Forces. He has served on the EFA and EFNE Professional Advisory Boards. He has received grants from EF, AES, Foundations, Veterans Affairs, DoD, and a NINDS K23 Award.
He trains clinicians around the country using distance supervision in neurobehavioral therapy (NBT), used for seizures, movement disorders, cognitive and somatic symptom disorders, based on a whole-person, integrative medicine biopsychosocialspiritual approach. His research focuses on developing new biomarkers and treatments for neuropsychiatric aspects of epilepsy, conversion (functional neurological) disorders and TBI. He is co-editor of “Nonepileptic Seizures”, 4th ed., and co-author of “Taking Control of Your Seizures: Workbook” and “Taking Control of Your Seizures: Therapist Guide.” A goal of his work at Brown, nationally and internationally, has been to bridge neurology and psychiatry clinical practice and scientific research and to dissolve arbitrary boundaries between the two fields.
Case Presentation: Tamara Fischl, MBBS, MedSc (hons) UNSW
Dr. Fischl is an adult psychiatrist with 20 years of experience in consultation-liaison psychiatry, specializing in psychiatric aspects of chronic neurological disorders. She is especially interested in the neuropsychiatry of epilepsy, global epilepsy and global brain health. She set up a neuropsychiatry clinic for adolescents with epilepsy at Sheba Hospital and is now working with an epileptologist to start a joint community neuropsychiatry of epilepsy clinic at Kupat Holim Leumit in Tel Aviv. She has been named to the upcoming pediatric psychiatry task force of the International League Against Epilepsy.
Hosted by: Sheldon Benjamin, MD
Dr. Benjamin is a neuropsychiatrist who is doubly board-certified in both Psychiatry and Neurology. He has served as the Chairman of Psychiatry and as Psychiatry Residency Training Director at UMass Chan Medical School, where he is a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurology. Dr. Benjamin co-leads a medical exchange program for students and residents at UMass Chan and Ben Gurion University of the Negev’s Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical School.
