Andrew
Shaner,
MD
Staff Psychiatrist
VA Greater Los Angeles Health Care System
Andrew Shaner, M.D. is a Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He practices and teaches psychiatry at the West Los Angeles VA on an interprofessional team providing primary and mental health care to homeless veterans. He is interested in how clinicians can use the evolutionary biology of human cooperation to remain humanistic—respectful, empathic, and compassionate—with patients suffering from complex behavioral and physical problems. He lead the development of the “The Humanism Pocket Tool,” a concise set of techniques to interact with patients and team members to foster compassion and a culture of humanism.
Presenting at the Nexus Summit:
Rationale: Homeless patients often have multiple interacting social, psychological, behavioral and medical needs. Interprofessional (IP) teams of relevant health care professionals have been shown to deliver high quality care for such vulnerable patients while also reducing the need for costly emergency and inpatient care. Our IP team of clinicians and trainees from six primary care and mental health disciplines has cared for 3000 homeless Veterans for the past four years. Our systematic approach to teamwork, humanism and clinician well-being has created a robust, empathetic and…