Matthew E. Hirschtritt, MD, MPH

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Matthew Hirschtritt is a physician researcher with The Permanente Medical Group Delivery Science & Applied Research Physician Researcher Program. He is also an Associate Physician in the Department of Psychiatry of The Permanente Medical Group (Oakland, CA), an Adjunct Investigator in the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, and Assistant Program Director for Research in the Kaiser Permanente Oakland Psychiatry Residency Training Program. He is also a Volunteer Assistant Clinical Professor in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. The overarching goals of his research include improving equitable access to, quality of, and cost-effectiveness of mental health detection and treatment, focusing on underserved and marginalized communities.

Dr. Hirschtritt's investigative work has involved diverse mental health-related topics, including characteristics and treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, adolescent depression and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and substance use disorders. His work has also examined the interrelationship between adolescent resiliency, peer victimization, and suicidal ideation. More recently, his work has focused on the distribution, provision, and quality of mental health care in the United States, which has involved addressing mental health stigma (specifically the harmful implications of attributing gun violence exclusively to mental illness) and psychotropic prescription patterns using nationally representative data.

In addition to his research experience, Dr. Hirschtritt has worked in various clinical psychiatric settings, including inpatient units in a safety-net, academically affiliated, and private hospitals, psychiatric emergency services, and outpatient services (including interdisciplinary clinics focused on the needs of sexual minority adults and young adults with new- or recent-onset psychosis). He is an enthusiastic educator, having designed an online curriculum for the National Neuroscience Curriculum Initiative.

Following completion of his undergraduate degree in psychology from Cornell University, Dr. Hirschtritt joined the National Institute of Mental Health as an Intramural Research Training Award recipient. He then completed his pre-medical, postbaccalaureate coursework at Johns Hopkins University, and, before beginning medical school, served as a research associate in the Yale Child Study Center. As a student in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, a five-year program dedicated to training clinician-scientists, Dr. Hirschtritt completed additional coursework in public health (leading to an MPH degree), and first came to UCSF as a Doris Duke Clinical Scholar, where he completed residency training in adult psychiatry and fellowship training in forensic psychiatry.