I am currently the Medical Director at the Garvey Institute Center for Neuromodulation and am providing leadership to help grow our portfolio in the area of Neuromodulation and Interventional Psychiatry. Before coming to the UW, I was the Muriel Harris Chair of Geriatric Psychiatry and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at UCLA. While at UCLA, I held many administrative, clinical and teaching leadership positions including serving as Medical Director of Inpatient Geriatric Psychiatry, Chief of Staff of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Founding Faculty of the UCLA Neuromodulation Division, Medical Director of the ECT and Interventional Psychiatry Program, among others.
I recently became Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of ECT and Related Therapies, the official publication of the International Society of ECT and Neurostimulation. My research projects have included investigating various neuromodulation and interventional therapies and developing novel educational programs and curricula. I have an abiding interest in mentoring and helping faculty at the start of their careers and a commitment to fostering the advancement of women and underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in academic medicine.
I enjoy collaborating with patients and viewing their concerns through a holistic lens. I believe that transparent, integrated care is the most effective way to arrive at an accurate case conceptualization and treatment plan. My background in the neurosciences and medical psychiatry has offered me a comprehensive understanding of the biologic basis of psychiatric illness and the strength of the mind-body connection. My practice has span clinical, academic and research realms and afforded me opportunities to work with treatment-resistant depression, neuromodulation therapies, medical complexities and patients impacted by hormonal changes related to puberty, pregnancy, gender transitions and menopause. I enjoy learning from my patients and remain humbled by their resilience.
Dr. Michael Schrift is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. He currently is an attending neuropsychiatrist at the Brain & Memory Center at Harborview Medical Center. He is he the director of the Behavioral Neurology/Neuropsychiatry Fellowship Training Program. He previously was the Division Director of Geriatric Psychiatry & Neuropsychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. He was also the director of the fellowship training program in Geriatric Psychiatry, co-director of the Clinical Neuroscience Fellowship program, and the director of the Neuromodulation Program and the Cancer Neuropsychiatry Program. He has many years of experience treating patients with Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and Wilson’s, among other neuropsychiatric disorders. He also is an attending neuropsychiatrist in the Harborview Memory and Brain Wellness Clinic.
Dr. Schrift is the Book Review Editor for the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.
He is board-certified in Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology as well as board certified in Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry by the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties. He has training in Bioethics and serves on the ethics committee at Harborview Medical Center. Dr. Schrift is a fellow of the American Neuropsychiatric Association.
