Shuster president of Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine
John Shuster Jr., M.D., professor of Psychiatry and Medicine and director of Vanderbilt's Psychiatry and Medicine program, has been elected president of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine (APM). His term will end in November 2011.
John Shuster Jr., M.D.
The APM has a membership of more than 900 psychiatrists from around the world dedicated to the advancement of medical science, education and health care for patients with concurrent psychiatric and medical conditions and provides national and international leadership furthering those goals.
Shuster, who joined the faculty in July, is developing Vanderbilt's Psychiatry and Medicine program, which deals with the psychiatric care of patients with medical illness or those cared for in non-psychiatric settings and represents Vanderbilt's effort in Psychosomatic Medicine. The field is formerly known as Consultation Psychiatry.
Shuster, a graduate of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Emory University School of Medicine, served a residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and came to Vanderbilt from the University of Alabama Birmingham where he was the founding director of the UAB Center for Palliative Care.
“Some of the most exciting work that is being done is moving this field away from just doing consultations, toward collaborative care,” Shuster said. “There is really exciting work being done in primary care and geriatrics and in some specialty areas, looking at bringing the expertise of this kind of psychiatry to bear on population-based care.”