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Psychiatry
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About Us | Faculty | Staff | Services | Educational Programs | Research | News on Current/Upcoming Events | Contact Us
About Us
History
Psychiatry as a discipline has always been an integral part of the Medical School curriculum and among the clinical services offered at AUBMC. In the 1960s and early 1970s, psychiatry enjoyed a prominent role at AUBMC. Many medical students in those years went on to specialize in psychiatry in the USA or Great Britain. Until the mid 1970s, the Division of Psychiatry at AUBMC directed and oversaw the clinical care of patients at Asfourieh, the teaching hospital for AUB medical students and residents. Asfourieh, known as an outstanding treatment center for psychiatric disorders in the Middle East, ran with a full bed capacity and had many private patients from neighboring countries. With the closure of Asfourieh, the psychiatrists at AUBMC practiced and did all their teaching at AUBMC, a situation which continues today.
In 1991, Dr. Munir Khani was asked to take charge of the Division of Psychiatry, and in 1993, he established the Department of Psychiatry with its own independent structure and functions. Dr. Khani was appointed as the first chairman to establish the clinical, teaching and research activities at the Medical School and AUBMC. He started the clinical and academic activities on his own and gradually recruited more faculty members to expand and improve these services (see staff and services below). In 1997, the Department of Psychiatry moved to its current location at the Dale Home on the first floor. Currently, the department is recruiting a new chairman to continue the distinguished role of the department in Lebanon and the region.
Philosophy
 The Department of Psychiatry has elected to adopt the biopsychosocial model in its endeavors and activities at AUBMC. This model strives to integrate the different aspects of human development and their impact on the different psychiatric illnesses, as well as on the well being of humanity, in general. These aspects include the innate genetic and biological mechanisms involved in human development of emotions, thoughts and behaviors. The stage of psychological development is another aspect that plays a major role in the manifestations of psychiatric signs and symptoms. The third aspect tackles the cultural and societal norms that are also stressed in our approach to managing individuals with psychiatric diseases.
Mission and Goals
The mission of the Department of Psychiatry at AUBMC is to promote mental health as a medical specialty and as an integral part of the human well being. We also aim at providing the evidence-based psychiatric treatment and to establish the proper settings and expertise in order to provide quality care, teaching, training and supervision.
The department has set its target on several goals: providing the best psychiatric care known, adopting and promoting the biopsychosocial model for clinical practice and academic teaching, widening the scope of psychiatric services at AUBMC, minimizing the stigma of mental illness in the region, promoting awareness of the significance of mental illness and its treatment among families of patients, general public and other medical services, promoting coverage for psychiatric services by third parties, strengthening the liaison between psychiatry and other medical specialties and others.
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Faculty
| Name |
Title |
Board Certification |
Specialty |
Email |
| Hassen Al-Amin, MD |
Acting Chairman, Associate Professor |
American Board of Psychiatry |
General Psychiatry and Schizophrenia |
ha03@aub.edu.lb |
| Zeina El-Chemali, MD |
Visiting Assistant Professor |
American Board certified in both psychiatry and neurology |
Neuropsychiatry and Memory Disorders |
ze05@aub.edu.lb |
| Leila Farhood |
Clinical Associate, Professor in the School of Nursing |
- |
Family Therapy |
lf00@aub.edu.lb |
| Marwan Gharzeddine, PhD |
Clinical Associate |
American Board of Psychology |
Psychotherapy |
garzedin@yahoo.com |
| Dory Hachem, MD |
Clinical Associate |
- |
General Psychiatry |
dorypat@hotmail.com |
| Mohamad Halabi, MD |
Clinical Associate |
DISC/France |
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry |
moeh@terra.net.lb |
| Munir Khani, MD |
Adjunct, Associate Professor |
American Board of Psychiatry |
General Psychiatry and Mood Disorders |
mk07@aub.edu.lb |
| Brigitte Khoury, PhD |
Assistant Professor |
American Board of Psychology |
Psychotherapy |
bk03@aub.edu.lb |
| Nabil Mikati, MD |
Clinical Associate |
- |
General Psychiatry |
nmam48@msn.com |
| Madeleine Badaro-Taha, MD |
Clinical Associate |
- |
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry |
mbt@pisweb.net | (Top)
Staff
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Services
The biopsychosocial approach requires a multidisciplinary team of many experts. This highly qualified and professional team that usually includes a psychiatrist, a neurologist, a psychologist, a nurse and a social worker provides such a multidisciplinary approach. Clinical services provided by the Department of Psychiatry include:
 Inpatient management of acute depression, suicide, anxiety disorders, detoxification and other disorders. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is also available.
- Consultation liaison services for the medical patients admitted to the Medical Center
- Outpatient clinics provide assessment and medical management of all major psychiatric disorders: major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, panic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, drug and alcohol dependence, etc...
- Inpatient and outpatient counseling, individual psychotherapy, couple therapy, marriage counseling, family therapy, psychological testing and social assessment
- Neuropsychiatry and cognitive disorders clinics to provide the proper testing and assessment of patients with memory problems, developmental and neurodegenerative disorders and thus, provide the proper management and pharmacological treatment for these patients.
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Educational Programs
The Department of Psychiatry offers an undergraduate course to Med II students and a clinical clerkship to Med III students, as well as clinical electives to interns and residents. It also provides training and supervision for psychologists.
Psychopathology
A course that introduces Med II students to normal and abnormal psychological mechanisms, as well as the classification and pathophysiology of psychiatric illness.
Clinical Clerkship in Psychiatry
A clinical clerkship in which third year medical students spend one month working up psychiatric patients and attending morning rounds on a psychiatric service where they are supervised by an attending psychiatrist. Students also attend the psychiatry clinic in the Outpatient Department where they see new cases and prepare seminars. The rotation also includes seminars dealing with psychopathology, case presentation and discussions, interview techniques and basic psychotherapy, as well as psychopharmacology. Seminars are held daily and are supervised by the fulltime faculty.
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Research
 The faculty members at the Department of Psychiatry at AUBMC continue to be actively involved in several national and international studies that address the biopsychosocial aspects of mental health and its treatment.
Drs. Munir Khani and Hassen Al-Amin are currently involved in an international multi-center study on lamotrigine, an antiepileptic medication used in the treatment of patients with bipolar disorders. They also collaborated with the neuroscience group at AUB and a French team from University de Poitier to study the effects of PCP analogue dizocilpine, a glutamate NMDA antagonist, and apomorphine, a dopamine agonist, on sensori-motor behaviors in animal models of addiction and chronic pain.
Dr. Al-Amin continues his work on the behavioral and neurobiological effects of neonatal ventral hippocampal lesion, a validated animal model of schizophrenia. This work can further the understanding of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and thus, find better pharmacological treatments.
Dr. Zeina El-Chemali is a neuro-psychiatrist who recently joined the Department of Psychiatry at AUBMC. She published several articles related to the behavioral problems seen in neurological disorders. She is currently analyzing data on the prevalence of anxiety disorders in a cohort of multiple sclerosis patients. She is also preparing for several projects, including validation of neuropsychiatric tests in geriatric population (Wellcome grant) and assessing cognitive functions and psychiatric co-morbidities in patients with restless leg syndrome.
Dr. Brigitte Khoury, clinical psychologist, has been actively involved in studies related to international and cross-cultural psychology. She collaborated with NIH on a cross-cultural, multi-center study covering over 60 countries in the world and comparing personality patterns and traits across different populations. She was also involved in an international study called "International Sexuality Description Project" in collaboration with Bradley University and colleagues from all over the world to study patterns of attachment and sexual activity across the world.
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News on Current /Upcoming Events
- The department has finished the plans to have a psychiatry wing that will have specialty clinics for all psychiatric disorders and a sophisticated inpatient unit that will enhance the clinical, teaching and research activities of the department.
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Contact Us
 Mailing Address
American University of Beirut Medical Center
Department of Psychiatry
Dale Home, 1st floor
P.O.Box: 11-0236
Beirut - Lebanon
- Telephone: 00961-1-374374 or 00961-1-350000 ext: 5650/1
- Fax: 00961-1-749209
- Email: psych02@aub.edu.lb
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