Marshall Forstein, MD

Associate Professor of Psychiatry,
Harvard Medical School
Department of Psychiatry,
Cambridge Health Alliance

1493 Cambridge Street, Macht 204
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: 617-665-1187
Fax: 617-665-3449

 

Educational and professional experience:

Middlebury College, B.A. 1971
College of Medicine, University of Vermont 1980
Internship, Presbyterian Hospital, Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco,
1980-81
Residency In Psychiatry
Massachusetts General Hospital 1981-84
Staff psychiatrist at Cambridge Hospital since 1984
Director of HIV Services at the Cambridge Hospital 1989-2003
Director, Adult Psychiatric Residency Training 2003-

 

Current teaching and research interests:

I had been involved with the patient-doctor course for several years when I was asked by Susan Block and Andy Billings to participate in the Living With Life Threatening Illness Course. I also teach a seminar at The Cambridge Hospital on psychotherapy with lesbian and gay people. I teach nationally and internationally on HIV and AIDS, training mental health providers, primary care providers, and residents in training.  I was a co-PI on a federal HIV training grant and continue to do teaching and training through the American Psychiatric Association’s HIV Training Grant.  I am also participating as faculty in the Program in Palliative Care Education and Practice Directed by Susan Block and Andy Billings.  Current research interests include developing a brief neuropsychiatric screening tool for subcortical cognitive impairment in HIV. Assessing how cognitive impairments affect adherence to treatment and the processing of information about end of life care are two of our goals.  I served on the Robert Wood Johnson Workgroup on HIV Palliative Care and am currently the Chair of the work group of the American Psychiatric Association to develop practice guidelines for HIV and Psychiatry, and my current position is Training Director for the Adult Psychiatry Residency Program at the Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School. In addition to the wonderful chance to prepare the next generation of psychiatrists, I am working with a multidisciplinary advisory group to develop palliative care at the Cambridge Health Alliance, and inserting teaching about end of life care into the psychiatric curriculum.