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Rupert McShane

MD FRCPsych


Associate Professor

  • Consultant Psychiatrist

I am interested in treatment-resistant depression and dementia.  Clinically, I lead the Oxfordshire ECT and ketamine services and run a memory clinic.  My main focus is developing policy and monitoring arrangements for rapidly acting antidepressants such as ketamine.  I lead an international online journal club and chair the steering committee of an international academic conference on Ketamine and Related Compounds for Psychiatric Disorders.  I work on ways of optimizing the effects of ketamine and am national CI and local PI for trials of rapidly acting antidepressants. Following an NIHR-funded case series exploring the use of repeated ketamine for resistant depression, we have now treated over 300 patients and are continuing to refine treatment protocols.  I chair the Royal College of Psychiatrists Committee on ECT and related treatments.  I led a qualitative study of ECT, which led to the creation of a Healthtalk module of patients talking about their experience and an exploration of why experiences are so polarised.  When I was Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group, I led programmes on reviews of diagnostic test accuracy, and modifiable risk factors for dementia.  I support NIHR funded and commercial dementia and antidepressant trials as local PI.