Westport Family Counseling is hosting a Networking Breakfast and Presentation on, “Pharmacogenomic Testing: Moving Psychiatry into the 21st Century,” on Thursday February 18th, 2016 from 8:30-10am. Dr. Vatsal Thakkar will be our guest presenter on this topic.
Dr. Thakkar will speak about the fact that the state of the art in psychiatry for the last 50 years has been an evaluation by interview, followed by an educated guess regarding need for medication and then deciding among the 100+ various psychotropic medications available for clinical use. Now, the field of psychiatry is taking a quantum leap forward: a simple DNA test done by a mouth swab can be used to run anywhere from one to 18 different psychiatry-based genomic tests to create a physiological and treatment landscape on the patient sitting in the clinician’s office.
This presentation will be facilitated by Dr. Vatsal Thakkar M.D.
Vatsal G. Thakkar, M.D. Is Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine. He has held positions at both Vanderbilt Medical Center and NYU in the areas of med student & resident teaching, professional wellness/EAP, and clinical research on major depression, addictions, and adult ADHD. In 2013, he published a feature article in the New York Times titled, “Diagnosing the Wrong Deficit,” about the hidden scourge of sleep dysfunction in the psychiatric population. He currently practices full time in Westport, Connecticut.