SLEEP DISORDERS
Dear colleagues,
We are pleased to invite you to an event, organized by College of Private Psychiatry which will take place on 22A Dunav street on the 10th June, 2021.
The topic is "Sleep Disorders" with lecturer doc. Milena Milanova, md. The event starts at 15:00 with a welcome drink. The lecture starts at 15:30.
Those, wishing to join, can do so via videoconference on Zoom platform.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/99884719924?pwd=YjY1eXYvam84ampkaVV3N2FicksyUT09
Meeting ID: 998 8471 9924
Passcode: 0000
NEUROLEPTICS IN CONTEMPORARY TREATMENT OF SCHIZOPHRENIA
Dear colleagues,
We are pleased to invite you to an event, organized by College of Private Psychiatry which will take place on 22A Dunav street on the 3rd of June, 2021.The topic is "Neuroleptics in contemporary treatment of schizophrenia" with lecturer prof. Petar Marinov. The event starts at 14:00 with a welcome drink. The lecture starts at 14:30.
Those, wishing to join, can do so via videoconference on Zoom platform.
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://zoom.us/j/92890827848?pwd= TE9YWjQzb01hdmhXbVZibGpuY1hDZz09Meeting
ID: 928 9082 7848
Passcode: 0000
Expect more details.
We need this information in connection with the organization and capacity of the hall.
We are expecting you!
Sincerely yours,
From the organizers
“ST JOHN‘S WORT (HYPERICUM PERFORATUM) –A PLACE IN PSYCHIATRY“
Dear colleagues,We are pleased to invite you to an event, organized by College of Private Psychiatry which will take place on 22A Dunav street on the 27th of May, 2021.The topic is “ST JOHN‘S WORT (HYPERICUM PERFORATUM) –A PLACE IN PSYCHIATRY“ with lecturer prof. Petar Marinov. The event starts at 14:30 with a welcome drink. The lecture starts at 14:30.
Those, wishing to join, can do so via videoconference on Zoom platform.
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://zoom.us/j/94133776452?pwd=cW1Ya1ptZUNWeFhrY2o4SVpYZDRsUT09
Meeting ID: 941 3377 6452
Passcode: 0000
Expect more details for upcoming events soon!
Please acknowledge receipt of this message as well as your attendance at the event.We need this information in connection with the organization and capacity of the hall.
Sincerely yours,
From the organizers
Deyan Enev – “A Voice from the Great Silence”
Reprinted in Bulgarian from Portal Kultura with the kind permission of the author.
In this essay, the writer Deyan Enev returns to “A Cry”, a text he wrote in 2018 in memory of Assoc. Prof. Georgi Koychev, whom he had known some thirty years earlier while working as a night orderly in psychiatry. He then presents an unpublished story by Koychev himself – “Simo the Brown Wing”, an excerpt from the book “Animals and People”, sent to him by Koychev’s widow, the writer Fani Tsurakova.
Read the full texts in Bulgarian →
Assoc. Prof. Georgi Koychev (1944–2017) taught psychiatry at the Medical University of Sofia for many years and headed a ward at the Psychiatric Clinic of Alexandrovska Hospital. He founded the College of Private Psychiatry and the Bulgarian psychiatric journal “Receptor”.
Deyan Enev is a Bulgarian writer and journalist, the author of twelve books of short stories, sketches and essays. A selection of his stories, “Circus Bulgaria”, was published in English by Portobello Books in London in 2010.
Statement of the College of Private Psychiatry
Document in Bulgarian – open the PDF.
Precision Psychiatry Lab, University of Oxford – “COVID-19 and mental health guidance”
Introduction
Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has put clinicians and other professionals in every field of medicine under constant pressure. Now more than ever, we need the best evidence-based recommendations to provide high-quality care for our patients and to involve them actively in decision-making.
The “COVID-19 and mental health” guidance was developed by Dr Katharine Smith, Dr Edoardo Ostinelli, Dr Orla Macdonald, Dr Caroline Zangani, Dr James Hong and Professor Andrea Cipriani of the Precision Psychiatry Lab at the University of Oxford. Together with experts from leading universities in the USA, Canada and Europe (including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Toronto and King’s College London), the authors summarise the best guidance on the key COVID-19-related questions that front-line mental health professionals face every day. To date, the guidance has been translated into five other languages: Italian, French, Japanese, Chinese and Turkish. The original documents are available here: oxfordhealthbrc.nihr.ac.uk.
We are deeply grateful to the authors, with whose kind permission we provide a Bulgarian translation and adaptation of the guidance. We hope it will help clinicians and all other mental health professionals in our country choose the most appropriate approach to assessing and addressing key mental health issues during the pandemic. Some of the guidance documents, such as “Benzodiazepines”, “Clozapine”, “Lithium” and “Long-acting injectable antipsychotics”, recommend adapting already familiar algorithms to the conditions of COVID-19 and could be applied directly in Bulgaria. Others, such as “Telepsychiatry and digital technologies”, address newer methods whose development was made possible by the COVID-19 pandemic – a qualitatively new and different situation for humanity; they could open new paths in mental health care in our country. Topics such as “Domestic violence”, “Suicide”, “Pregnancy” and “Vaccines”, which go beyond the boundaries of psychiatry, are addressed on several levels: from practical guidance for front-line specialists to appropriate and correct ways of presenting information to the public and the media with a view to reducing risk. Where relevant, the guidance also considers specific populations (children, young people and older adults) as well as patients with multiple comorbidities.
Although this guidance has not been officially adopted and should be considered critically and in the context of individual cases and circumstances, we hope it will be of help in the daily clinical practice of front-line specialists in Bulgaria.
The translation and adaptation were carried out by: Dr Anna Dzhisova, Blagomir Boyanovski, Dr Daniela Radeva, Elitsa Ivanova, Dr Evgeni Papazov, Dr Katerina Petkova and Dr Ruslan Zhelev.
Coordinator: Dr Evgeni Papazov
Project lead: Dr Silvia Ralovska
We are very grateful to Professor Georgi Onchev, Professor Petar Marinov, Dr Ivan Koychev, Dr Ana Popova, Dr Emilia Markova, Dimitar Ganchev and Ivelina Halova for their contribution throughout the process.
Dr Silvia Ralovska
The guidance in Bulgarian:
- Lithium – a clinical approach to patients taking lithium during the COVID-19 epidemic
- A: Practical telepsychiatry recommendations for the busy clinician – a checklist of things to consider before, during and after the consultation
- B: Digital technologies and telepsychiatry – full guidance
- Clozapine – how to monitor patients taking clozapine during the COVID-19 pandemic
- D: Telepsychiatry and digital technologies in old age psychiatry
- C: Telepsychiatry and digital technologies in child and adolescent psychiatry
- Long-acting injectable antipsychotics – how to manage patients on long-acting injectable (depot) antipsychotics during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Benzodiazepines and Z-drugs (zopiclone and zolpidem) – how to treat patients taking benzodiazepines and Z-drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Suicide and self-harm – how to prevent, assess and manage the risk of suicide and self-harm during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Domestic violence – how to prevent, assess and manage the risk of domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Pregnancy and the perinatal period – how to recognise and treat mental health problems during pregnancy and the perinatal period in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic
The third edition of the New Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry includes the names of two Bulgarians – Professor Anna Guerdjikova, MD, and Dr Ivan Koychev. Professor Guerdjikova is an author of the chapter on eating disorders, and Dr Koychev of the chapter on dementia and cognitive disorders. Professor Guerdjikova works at the University of Cincinnati, USA, and Dr Koychev at the University of Oxford. To our pride, we should add that the parents of both are among the initiators and founders of the College of Private Psychiatry.
At the end of 2020, the “Professor Marin Drinov” Publishing House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences published “Emergency Urology”. It contains a chapter, “Psychiatry in emergency urology”, written by Dr Fani Tsurakova. According to Corresponding Member Prof. Chavdar Slavov, MD, under whose editorship the monograph was published, mental and behavioural disorders are addressed here for the first time in the literature on emergency urology.
At the 20th conference of the College of Private Psychiatry, a jubilee issue of the Bulgarian psychiatric journal “Receptor” was presented. It brings together what its editors consider the best articles from the volumes of past years. The authors include Prof. Alan Feldhaus, Prof. Lachezar Hranov, Assoc. Prof. Georgi Koychev, Prof. Rumen Milev, Prof. Rinaldo Shishkov, Prof. Petar Marinov, Prof. Heinz Katschnig, Prof. Gustav Hofmann, Dr Nikola Markov, Prof. Georgi Onchev, Prof. Kiril Milenkov and others.
Some twenty copies are available to those interested at the office of the College of Private Psychiatry. Please arrange in advance by e-mail: f.tsurakova@gmail.com
DR. NIKOLA MARKOV: FROM MY TEACHER PROF. TASHEV I LEARNED THAT WE SHOULD SEEK
FOR THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF RECOGNITION AMONG OUR COLLEAGUES
Reprinted from Zdrave.net – The Bulgarian health portalhttps://www.zdrave.net
Author: Nevena Popova
The doctor is not just a specialist who works
brilliantly or has made a mistake. It is not only the one whose decisions the
patient relies on. He is not even the only expert that our health and sometimes
our lives depend on. He is all this, but also much more - because behind each
name with "Dr." in the front, there is a Man.
Who is this Man behind
the name, what are his life choices, how does he work and how does he rest - we
are looking for the answers to these questions in our new section "Who are
you, Doctor?"
Dr. Nikola Markov is a graduate from Medical University - Plovdiv. After graduating in 1986, Dr. Markov began his professional path in the State Psychiatric Hospital in the village of Patalenitsa. He acquired his specialty in 1990. He also works in Mental Health Centre in Plovdiv. For more than 20 years Dr. Markov has had an independent practice as a specialist psychiatrist in Plovdiv. One of the founders of the College of Private Psychiatry. One of the few specialists in our country who applies transcranial magnetic stimulation as a therapeutic method for various mental disorders. A few days ago he was awarded the prize in the name of Assoc. Prof. Georgi Koychev for overall contribution to the development of modern Psychiatry in Bulgaria.
Dr. Markov, your professional career during the recent years is inextricably linked to the cause of "Private Psychiatry", you are one of the founders of the association with the same name. Did you achieve the goals that brought you together in the beginning - more humane, more accessible and more efficient psychiatric care and support for people with such problems?
We should keep in mind that this is from the last 20 years. In the conditions of an unreformed health care system, we have contributed to the decentralization of psychiatric care and its positioning in the community, which is inevitably associated with more humanity, easier accessibility and increased efficiency.
On the day you receive the award in the name of the inspirer of the idea of expanding the private psychiatric practice Assoc. Prof. Georgi Koychev, I can't help but ask you if it is difficult for you to talk about him in past tense?
The loss is palpable and painful, but the memories and experience with Assoc. Prof. Koychev, his lessons and his scientific and human heritage leave the feeling that he and his personality are still among us.
Tell us a bit about what brought you together with this group of colleagues, what were your first steps?
Being a part of the progressive, developing part of the professional community, having the support, but also the criticism of like-minded people is a challenge that I accepted in 2000. Under the leadership of Assoc. Prof. Koychev, the College of Private Psychiatry created the first consensus in the new history of Bulgarian Psychiatry, which are embedded in the first professional standards. With each passing year, the conferences have been improving their quality and have become expected events, defining trends and future directions. These meetings were and still are interdisciplinary in nature, as a rule and with the participation of colleagues from abroad.
It is no secret the great attention that you pay to colleagues who are now making their first steps in this profession. You were a co-founder of the NLO Award for Young Psychiatrists (Niki and Lacho assess) together with Prof. Lachezar Hranov, who is also no longer with us. You are now a part of the managing body in the newly established Foundation “Young Physicians for Bulgaria”. What is the reason for your devotion to the cause with these young people - graduates, students?
As a young doctor I received the exceptional support and the opportunity to grow and develop myself from Dr. Krum Savov and Dr. Nikolai Dzhambazov. I promised to return the gesture to young colleagues, and now it's time for that.
If you look at yourself, during your path over the years, do you have an answer to the question - does the young Dr. Nikola Markov look like them or is he different - in his thoughts, ambitions and intentions?
Today I still remain excited and satisfied in the quest to provide assistance in significantly more opportunities based on the development of the specialty worldwide and nationally.
Do these young people have a perspective for development in our country or has our Psychiatry seriously deviated from the direction in which the world is going today? What do you want to wish them?
Foundation “Young Physicians for Bulgaria” aims to financially support young medics. Personally, I realize that no matter how much we help them, it will be incomparably less than what they would receive outside the country. What I can do is, I try to show them the advantages, remaining in Bulgaria to develop ahead of time, and, of course, have access to high technology and innovative therapeutic methods, which in a more strictly regulated and hierarchical system are difficult and slower to achieve. As paradoxical as it may sound, in our country, the "art of healing" is still possible. Let them be healthy, first of all, and turn their work into pleasure.
And instead of a finale, let me ask you - which of the testaments of your teachers in science do you keep in yourself as the truth to which you will remain faithful regardless of the circumstances?
Prof. Todor Tashev, whose direct graduate I consider myself to be, said that it is important to receive the recognition of our patients, but we must seek the highest degree of recognition among our colleagues. I believe that the award in the name of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Georgi Koychev for contribution to Bulgarian psychiatry brings me closer to this goal.
"There are no stuntmen in life - you have to take care of yourself, do what you can best ..."
(Dr. Georgi Koychev)