Free neuroimmune case teaching for physicians, and what it means for your referrals
- The Neuroimmune Foundation runs a series in the Project ECHO format for physicians who evaluate and treat children, youth and adults whose psychiatric symptoms are due to an underlying neuroimmune condition (the page names encephalitis, neuropsychiatric lupus, PANS and Sydenham's Chorea). Each session lasts one hour on Zoom: a 15–20 minute didactic by an expert, then 40–45 minutes of case-based learning.
- There is no cost for physicians to join, and each session carries up to 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit. Participants present cases and are mentored by experts weekly for six months, with an option to continue. Dr. Jennifer Frankovich (Stanford) and Dr. Mark Pasternack (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard) join every session; a rheumatologist, an infectious disease physician and a psychiatrist are always present.
- The 2025 schedule lists 19 numbered lectures from 14 January to 24 June 2025, plus a consultation panel on the second Tuesday of each month, where one physician presents a complex case. The 2026 schedule for Cohort II lists eight didactic sessions from 20 January to 24 March 2026, and its last posted date is 14 April 2026.
- Access terms: the application page addresses physicians and describes a closed cohort with limited space. US participants commit to attending at least 80% of sessions. Physicians outside the US in inconvenient time zones may register for the 10:30 am PT or 4:00 pm PT sessions, watch the recorded lectures and attend half of the meetings live. Sessions are recorded, and recordings sit in a restricted clinicians area of the foundation's website.
A child or an adult whose psychiatric symptoms arrive together with signs of an immune or inflammatory condition may need a physician who has seen such cases before. A recurring, free case consultation for physicians exists for that situation. For you, its value this week lies in what it tells you about the person you refer to.
How the series runs and who may join
The foundation runs the series with Project ECHO, a video-conference model in which specialists teach and advise other clinicians. Joining is free, but the application page speaks only of physicians and describes a closed cohort with limited space. Recordings sit in a restricted clinicians area. The page names no route for other professions. A licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Allison Vreeland of Stanford, did give the 2025 lecture on rehabilitation, so a psychologist does appear on the faculty list.
Using the channel when you refer
For a psychologist this is not an enrolment option. It is information about where a psychiatrist or pediatrician can take a hard case. When a client's picture includes physical signs or a recent infection, ask the receiving physician whether they have access to neuroimmune case consultation, and name this series as one example. Do not tell the client that the program will diagnose or treat anything: it is education for physicians. Before you mention it, check the foundation's page for the current cohort, since the schedule posted there ends in April 2026. Write the referral so a consultant could use it: onset, course, infections, physical findings.
A free, physician-only case consultation is useful to a psychologist as a question to put to the receiving psychiatrist, not as something to promise a client.
The page states that session topics, guest speakers and dates are subject to change, that space is limited and that the cohort is closed. Cases presented in the sessions must avoid protected health information, and participants are asked to share only anonymized cases.