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Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Service

Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry is the area of Psychiatry concerned with the psychobiological care of the medically ill. This patient population includes persons of all ages and those cared for in specialized settings such as internal medicine, surgery, organ transplantation, and many others. C/L specialists, in addition to providing expert formal psychiatric consultation to medical and surgical patients in the general hospital, specialized hospitals and outpatient clinic settings, also train psychiatrists and non-psychiatrist healthcare providers (e.g., internists, neurologists, surgeons, nurses, physician assistants) in the recognition of normal and abnormal reactions to illness and appropriate psychological care of patients with such reactions.

Thus the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Service functions both as a consultant and as part of the primary medical/surgical treatment team. Via conjoint rounds and teaching conferences, formal consultations, and involvement in inpatient treatment and discharge planning, the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Service provides a comprehensive approach to the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral needs of the patient.

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This Program Provides

Consultation to Stanford Hospital medical/surgical units for patients with psychiatric disorders
Pre-organ transplant evaluation to assess patients’ psychological readiness for transplantation, as well as treatment for common psychiatric complications
Prevention and management of alcohol and drug withdrawal at Stanford Hospital
Competency assessments for participation in medical decision making
Psychiatric aspects of pain management
Prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of delirium
Psychotherapeutic and pharmacologic interventions for those suffering from cancer, HIV, terminal illnesses, neurological illnesses, and chronic medical processes
Psychopharmacology of intubated patients in the intensive care unit setting
Family, caregiver, and hospital staff support for coping with illness or death of a loved one
Consultation to hospital staff managing complex patients and the psychiatric aspects of medical processes

Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Service

The inpatient Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (CLP) Service provides consultation throughout the hospital’s 23 medical/surgical units for the management of psychiatric conditions arising within the context of medical and surgical conditions. Our team provides a wide range of treatment recommendations to patients while hospitalized including pharmacotherapy, hypnosis, cognitive-behavioral management plans, brief supportive psychotherapy, alterations in the milieu, meetings with family or members of support system and recommend interventions by other disciplines such as neurology, social work, the spiritual care, or rehabilitation services. Our team consists of full time CLP attending physicians, CLP fellow physicians, second-year psychiatry resident physicians, internal medicine or neurology resident physicians, and medical students.

Psychiatric Oncology

The Psychiatric Oncology Service includes teams at both the Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC) as well as the Inpatient Proactive Psychosocial Oncology Service. Our team provides treatment and support to patients at various stages of a cancer diagnosis in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. We closely collaborate with both the inpatient and outpatient oncology teams. Our team consists of full time CLP attending physicians, CLP fellows, and social workers.

Critical Care Psychiatry Service

The Critical Care Psychiatry (CCP) Service provides consultation to Stanford’s 10 specialized critical care units for management of psychiatric conditions arising within the context of critical illness. Our team provides a wide range of treatment recommendations to patients in the ICU setting including pharmacotherapy, hypnosis, cognitive-behavioral management plans, brief supportive psychotherapy, alterations in the milieu, meetings with family or members of support system and recommend interventions by other disciplines such as neurology, social work, the spiritual care, or rehabilitation services. Our team consists of full time CLP attending physicians, CLP fellow physicians, second-year psychiatry resident physicians, internal medicine or neurology resident physicians, and medical students.

Transplant Psychiatry

The Transplant Psychiatry Service provides pre-transplant psychiatric evaluation, screening of prospective living donors, post-transplant management of psychiatric complications, and inpatient consults of transplantation patients. Our team consists of full time CLP attending physicians and CLP fellows with close collaboration with the transplant surgery teams and social workers.

Integrated Behavioral Health

The Integrated Behavioral Health (IBH) Service provides a collaborative treatment model in Stanford’s primary care clinics to expand access for patients to psychiatric service. Working in conjunction with the primary care physicians, nursing staff, social workers, and case managers, our IBH psychiatry team serves to provide psychiatric treatment and support to patients in Stanford’s primary care clinics. These include clinics at Stanford Medical Center, Los Altos, and Portola Valley. Similar IBH programs are also operational in employer-based clinics in partnership with Cisco, Qualcomm, and Yahoo clinic sites. Lastly, the IBH team manages the e-consultation program for psychiatry that serves the primary care providers in the Stanford Healthcare system.

Integrative Medicine

The Center for Integrative Medicine combines the best of mental (meditation, hypnosis), nutritional, acupuncture, and lifestyle treatments with mainstream modern medicine and psychotherapy to provide care for the whole person: mind and body. Started in 1998, the Stanford Center for Integrative Medicine (SCIM) is committed to evidence-based practices. We are here to help you live more fully, cope better with your medical condition, control symptoms, and participate more fully in your medical care. Learn more

Clinic Director

John and Terry Levin Family Professor of Medicine and Professor, by courtesy, of Emergency Medicine and of Medicine

To learn more about the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Service, Critical Care Psychiatry Service, Integrated Behavioral Health Service, Psychiatric Oncology Service, Transplant Psychiatry Service, and the Center for Integrative Medicine, visit the Medical Psychiatry website.