Dr. David Osser is a local, national, and international consultant in clinical psychopharmacology with over 25 years of experience in a wide variety of settings. He is well-known for the development of systematic, comprehensive algorithmic pathways that employ evidence-based reasoning for the psychopharmacological treatment of psychiatric disorders. A summary of this work may be found in the May, 1999 issue of Psychiatric Annals, edited by Dr. Osser, which is devoted to "The Harvard Psychopharmacology Algorithm Project" and presents four algorithms prepared by members of his team of collaborators.

Dr. Osser is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, with a secondary appointment at Tufts Medical School as Lecturer in Psychiatry. He is an author of over 50 academic products, including journal articles, software, monographs, book chapters, and abstracts. He received 4 awards for outstanding teaching, and the Rothstein Award in 1996 from the Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Massachusetts for his dedication and service to the severely mentally ill and their families. He also received an "Exemplary Psychiatrist" award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 2000. He has been on the staff of Taunton State Hospital for 25 years and currently is Director of the Psychopharmacology Consultation Service and Director of Medical Practice Evaluation and Management. He is also on the staff of the Brockton Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where he is the Psychiatrist for the domiciliary program for homeless veterans.

Computerized Algorithms: Publication History. In1991, in collaboration with Robert Patterson, M.D. as software engineer, Dr. Osser developed the Neuroleptic Resistant Psychosis Psychopharmacology Consultant (NRPPC), an interactive computer program of expert system software to guide the clinical use of medications for the treatment of psychoses. New editions came out until 1995. The first internet algorithm was the Algorithm for the Pharmacotherapy of Depression, published in 1996. The next internet algorithm was in 1998, the Consultant for the Pharmacotherapy of Schizophrenia, an updated revision of the NRPPC. The Algorithm for the Pharmacotherapy of Anxiety Disorders in the Context of Substance Abuse was first published on the internet in 1999. All program, plus other decision-support information, can be found at the web site www.mhc.com/Algorithms .

Dr. Osser, in collaboration with Dr. Patterson and others, has presented symposia, workshops, and media sessions at the last ten American Psychiatric Association Annual Meetings on the subject of algorithmic approaches to evidence-based pharmacotherapy. He is a member of the International Psychopharmacology Algorithm Project, headed by Kenneth Jobson, M.D. of Tennessee. Under these auspices, he has presented these algorithms and software at meetings in Japan and the People's Republic of China, and is a member of the International Steering Committee for International Support for the China Psychopharmacology Algorithm Project. Parts of the algorithm material have been or soon will be translated into Chinese, Spanish, Russian, and Greek. These algorithms have been viewed and downloaded by individuals all over the world.

He lives in Needham, Massachusetts with his wife Stephanie, and has two children, Rosie (19) and Daniel (16), and two turtles, Hypotenuse 4.0 and Hypotenuse 5.0.

(updated Nov. 2, 2001)