Hello and welcome,
If you're reading this, you're likely a clinician, psychiatrist, resident, NP/PA, pharmacist, or trainee who deals with psychiatric medications on a regular basis. You know the drill: rapid medication changes, tricky polypharmacy cases, CYP interactions that shift overnight, receptor profiles that explain (or complicate) side effects, and the constant need to balance efficacy, tolerability, and long-term outcomes.
That's exactly why I built PsychoPharmRef — a free, independent clinical reference tool focused on psychiatric pharmacology. What started as my personal collection of quick-reference tables (P450 interaction matrices, receptor Ki values with side-by-side comparisons, QT risk calculator, taper/start schedulers, refill calendars, neuropsychiatric circuit diagrams, and more) has grown into a growing resource used by colleagues across settings.
Now I'm launching this newsletter to bring the most useful, practical, and up-to-date pieces directly to your inbox — without the noise.
What to expect in future issues:
Deep dives into specific agents or classes (e.g., latest on long-acting injectables, GLP-1s in psychiatry, esketamine/ketamine protocols, or novel mechanisms in the pipeline)
Practical clinical tools and how-tos (optimizing cross-titration schedules, interpreting binding affinities for real-world side-effect prediction, managing high-risk polypharmacy)
Quick summaries of emerging data or guideline updates relevant to day-to-day prescribing
Neuropsych breakdowns (cognitive domains affected in MDD/psychosis/dementia, parallel loops in anxiety/OCD, limbic circuit implications)
Blog-style commentary on under-discussed topics like nutritional psychiatry, pregnancy/breastfeeding considerations, tobacco dependence as a chronic brain disease, movement disorder monitoring, or suicide risk mitigation strategies
Occasional "tool spotlights" walking through underused features on the site (e.g., the med comparison tool or AIMS/PANSS/Y-BOCS quick scales)
Everything here is written for busy professionals — concise, evidence-grounded, and immediately applicable. No fluff, no patient-facing general advice (this is a clinician/learner-focused space).
This is issue #1, so consider it the starting line. I'd love to hear what you'd find most helpful moving forward:
Particular medication classes or disorders?
More calculator walkthroughs?
Debunking myths or comparing head-to-head data?
Coverage of psychedelics/neuromodulation/tobacco/obesity psychopharm intersections?
Just hit reply or drop a note via the contact form on the site.
Thank you for subscribing — I'm genuinely excited to build this resource together with the community.
Stay sharp out there,
Jerad Shoemaker MD
Creator, Psychopharmacology Reference
https://psychopharmref.netlify.app/
P.S. If a colleague would find this useful, feel free to forward this email or share the subscribe link. The more clinicians using accurate, accessible tools, the better our field gets.