8:00 am – Registration Opens

8:00 – 9:00 am Silent Losses: Medical Student and Physician Burnout, Suicide, and Their Impact on the Healthcare Workforce 
Silent Losses: Medical Student and Physician Burnout, Suicide, and Their Impact on the Healthcare Workforce examines the often‑unseen human and systemic consequences of suicide within the medical community. The session explores psychological, cultural, and organizational drivers of distress; the ways burnout and unaddressed mental‑health needs erode the healthcare pipeline; and evidence‑based strategies institutions can adopt to protect trainees and practicing clinicians. By connecting individual well‑being to workforce sustainability, this talk highlights why preventing these losses is both a moral imperative and a structural necessity for the future of healthcare.
OBJECTIVES 
1.  Describe the prevalence and risk factors associated with suicide among medical students and physicians, including burnout, stigma, and structural pressures within training and practice environments.
2. Explain how suicide and mental‑health–related attrition contribute to the growing shortage of healthcare professionals and disrupt the stability of the workforce pipeline.
3. Identify early warning signs and high‑risk contexts in academic and clinical settings that warrant timely support, referral, or institutional intervention.
4. Formulate actionable steps that individuals, leaders, and institutions can implement to strengthen well‑being, reduce preventable harm, and support long‑term workforce resilience.
Speaker: Nauman Ashraf, MD, President Elect, Missouri Psychiatric Physicians Association, Program Director, General Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program, KCU-GME Consortium/Ozark Center

9:00 – 10:00 am Updates on Perinatal Psychiatry: Proven Treatments, Novel Mechanisms and Growing Resources to Enhance Clinical Practice 
An update presenting recent happenings in the field of perinatal psychiatry to include: best practices for perinatal substance use disorders, treatment of perinatal depression with neurosteroids, and an overview of local and national resources that psychiatric physicians can use to grow their practice and knowledge.
OBJECTIVES

1. Discuss the best practices and limitations of evidence-based treatments for substance use disorders in pregnant and postpartum patients, including screening, diagnosis and treatment of comorbid psychiatric conditions.
2. Describe the utility of neurosteroids for treatment of Postpartum Depression and the major hormones and neurotransmitters involved in this treatment mechanism.
3. Learn about local resources that psychiatric clinicians can utilize to help them manage perinatal clinical cases along with individualized resources and referrals for patients needing specialized care.
Speaker: Kimberly Brandt, DO, PMH-C, FASAM, Perinatal Psychiatrist, Mercy BRAVE Program, Mercy Hospital-St. Louis

10:00 – 11:15 am Break

11:15 – 12:15 pm A Primer on GLP-1 Analogs for Psychiatrists

Weight gain and metabolic diseases are prevalent in the psychiatric population and influenced by multiple classes of psychiatric medications. Pharmacologic management of obesity would provide significant benefit to the psychiatric population, however access to weight centers and physicians specialized in obesity medicine is a limiting factor to its utilization. Recent advances in the field of obesity medicine have led to the development of safe and effective medications for weight loss, with side effect profiles more favorable than earlier generations of FDA approved drugs. These medications have been shown to provide significant benefits not just to weight but primary clinical outcomes such as cardiovascular disease. Psychiatrists face the challenge of treating patients with weight-inducing medications, including SSRIs and atypical anti-psychotics, but have not built the expertise to utilize weight loss drugs to prevent the metabolic side effects of their treatments. Considering the safety profile of these agents, building familiarity with the GLP-1 analogs will allow psychiatrists to treat the obesogenic side effects of psychiatric medications directly. They also can be utilized in preventative measures based on predicted weight gain from medication initiation. Finally, there is growing body of evidence that GLP-1 analogs can impact the natural history of certain psychiatric diseases including alcohol use disorder, opioid use disorder, and certain eating disorders Developing comfort in utilizing these medications now will allow for ease of use in the future when the scope of the GLP-1 analogs may be broadened to psychiatric diseases. This lecture serves to explore the pharmacology of the GLP-1 analogs family of medications. It will focus specifically on utilization strategies for psychiatric patients regarding medication induced weight-gain. The primary impact of GLP-1 analogs on psychiatric diseases and specific considerations will also be addressed.
OBJECTIVES 
1. Describe the pharmacology of the GLP-1 analogs for weight loss indications
2. Apply the principles of weight management to psychiatric patients at risk for weight gain
3. Explore novel utilization of the GLP-1 analogs for psychiatric diseases
Speaker: Armen Yerevanian, MD, Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

12:15 – 1:15 pm Perinatal Bipolar Disorder: Diagnostic Challenges and Treatment 
This lecture will review the diagnosis and key clinical features that distinguish bipolar depression from unipolar depression in the perinatal period, along with practical screening strategies to improve diagnostic accuracy. It will also examine the impact of untreated bipolar disorder during pregnancy on both maternal and infant outcomes. Evidence-based treatment approaches for perinatal bipolar disorder will be discussed, with an emphasis on pharmacologic decision-making, reproductive and lactation safety, and risk–benefit considerations in clinical practice.
OBJECTIVES
1. Differentiate bipolar depression from unipolar depression during pregnancy and the postpartum period by applying diagnostic criteria, evaluating clinical presentation, and utilizing appropriate screening strategies.
2. Discuss the impact of untreated bipolar disorder during pregnancy on both maternal and infant outcomes.
3. Develop evidence-based management strategies for perinatal bipolar disorder incorporating pharmacologic treatments while evaluating reproductive safety, lactation considerations, and risk–benefit decision-making. 
Speaker: Rushaniya Khairova, MD, PhD, Founding Medical Director, Women’s Reproductive Mental Health Clinic, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, Saint Louis University Hospital, SLUCare Physician Group/ SSMHealth