About The Course
Eating Disorder Management requires more than recognising symptoms; it involves medical vigilance, therapeutic engagement and coordinated care across disciplines. In this on-demand course, Dr Lilian Zou and Dr Karen Spielman bring psychiatry and general practice perspectives together to clarify what clinicians should not miss, how to approach risk, and how multidisciplinary eating disorder care can support safer, more effective treatment pathways.
Who Is This Course For?
This course is suitable for:
- Psychiatrists
- General Practitioners (GPs)
- Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (MHNPs)
- Psychologists
- Mental health professionals
- Clinicians working in or expanding into psychiatry and mental health care
Accreditation Information:
- Psychiatry Accreditation: This course is available for self-accreditation with the RANZCP and other relevant psychiatric and mental health organisations.
- GP Accreditation: This course is available for self-accreditation with RACGP for general practitioners.
- On completion of this course, participants will receive a course completion certificate and 2 CPD hours.
What You'll Learn
In this session, Dr Zou and Dr Spielman will discuss:
- Demystifying eating disorders for psychiatrists and GPs, including newly available digital resources
- What not to miss in medical management
- Working in teams: Why? How? Who does what?
- What GPs want from psychiatrists during Eating Disorder Plan (EDP) reviews, and vice versa
Course Programme
5 Modules | Practical Clinical Webinar | 2 hours total length
- Why eating disorders can feel difficult to treat
- Treatment resistance, clinician uncertainty and system barriers
- Eating disorders as biopsychosocial and cultural conditions
- Stigma, therapeutic engagement and clinician attitudes
- Comorbidity, complexity and the mind–body interface
- Early identification and screening in psychiatric and primary care settings
- Using patient-centred questions to open the eating disorder conversation
- Understanding eating disorders beyond weight and appearance
- Medical complications across body systems
- Physical examination, vital signs, monitoring and clinical red flags
- Thresholds for escalation, admission and higher levels of care
- What GPs contribute across prevention, diagnosis, monitoring and relapse prevention
- The role of psychological medicine in eating disorder management
- What psychiatrists add through formulation, comorbidity review and risk assessment
- Eating Disorder Plan reviews and psychiatrist review requirements
- Communication between GPs, psychiatrists, psychologists and dietitians
- Why coordinated team-based care reduces risk and clinician burnout
- Building a multidisciplinary team around the patient and family
- Case conferencing, shared responsibility and collaborative risk management
- Supporting engagement when patients are ambivalent or reluctant
- Practical early steps: regular eating, psychoeducation, resources and follow-up
- The limited but important role of pharmacotherapy in eating disorders
- Medication considerations in anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder
- GLP-1 receptor agonists, eating disorder screening and prescribing cautions
- Digital resources, e-therapies and research pathways
- Managing long-standing eating disorders and maintaining hope
- Clinician Q&A on engagement, medical admission, functional vomiting, team dynamics and complex presentations
Course Description
Welcome to the on-demand webinar ‘Eating Disorders – Treatment Resistant or Resistant Treaters?’ with Dr Lilian Zou and Dr Karen Spielman.
Eating disorders can challenge clinicians not only because of medical risk, but because care often sits across multiple systems, disciplines and levels of engagement. In Eating Disorder Management, Dr Lilian Zou and Dr Karen Spielman bring psychiatry and general practice perspectives together to ask whether eating disorders are truly treatment-resistant, or whether clinicians and systems sometimes need clearer pathways for assessment, collaboration and care.
Clinical Complexity and Assessment
Eating Disorder Management begins by demystifying eating disorders for psychiatrists, GPs and mental health clinicians. The course explores stigma, clinician uncertainty, patient ambivalence, comorbidity and the mind–body interface, helping participants approach eating disorder assessment with greater confidence and clinical curiosity.
Medical Risk, Roles and Team-Based Care
The course highlights what clinicians should not miss in medical management, including physical examination, vital signs, monitoring, red flags and thresholds for escalation. It also clarifies the complementary roles of GPs and psychiatrists, including what each clinician may need from the other during Eating Disorder Plan reviews. Through this lens, Eating Disorder Management becomes less about working in isolation and more about building safer systems of care.
A central theme is multidisciplinary eating disorder care, including how GPs, psychiatrists, psychologists, dietitians, families and carers can work together around risk, engagement and treatment planning. The course also considers case conferencing, shared responsibility and communication across the treating team.
Treatment Pathways, Resources and Q&A
Participants are introduced to practical treatment pathways, the limited but important role of pharmacotherapy, digital resources, e-therapies and strategies for supporting patients who are reluctant or ambivalent about treatment. The clinician Q&A extends Eating Disorder Management into real-world scenarios, including admission thresholds, team dynamics, long-standing illness, and complex presentations involving vomiting, medical risk and diagnostic uncertainty.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of Eating Disorder Management, participants will be able to:
- Demystify eating disorders in psychiatric, primary care and mental health settings
- Identify key areas not to miss in medical risk assessment and management
- Strengthen eating disorder assessment using practical, patient-centred approaches
- Understand the roles of GPs, psychiatrists and other clinicians in multidisciplinary eating disorder care
- Apply practical principles to Eating Disorder Plan reviews and collaborative treatment planning
- Use digital resources and team-based strategies to support safer treatment pathways
Applying Learning in Practice
This on-demand course supports clinicians to move from uncertainty and fragmented care toward clearer, safer and more coordinated clinical practice.
Related Courses:
- Diagnostic Formulation in Psychiatric Practice: Clinical Strategies for Psychiatrists: To build on the webinar’s focus on complexity, comorbidity, diagnostic uncertainty, and mind-body formulation, clinicians may find this course valuable for strengthening structured assessment and clinical reasoning in complex psychiatric presentations.
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Advanced CBT Clinical Skills for Psychiatrists & Clinicians: Clinicians interested in the psychological and behavioural dimensions of eating disorder care may find this course relevant. It provides practical CBT tools that can support work with behavioural change, cognition, emotion, engagement, and structured intervention.
While our Academy members enjoy exclusive access to a range of courses and webinars (including this course) with their annual membership, we’re pleased to offer you the opportunity to purchase this course individually!
Please click on the respective links to take advantage of this offer.
Eating Disorders – Treatment Resistant or Resistant Treaters? For Psychiatrists
Eating Disorders – Treatment Resistant or Resistant Treaters? For General Practitioners
This on-demand course, Eating Disorders – Treatment Resistant or Resistant Treaters? with Dr Lilian Zou and Dr Karen Spielman, is offered in both video and audio formats. Participants receive a completion certificate and 2 CPD hours upon completion.
Strengthen eating disorder assessment and management through practical, clinician-focused guidance on medical risk, engagement, care planning and coordinated treatment across psychiatry, general practice and mental health settings.
Course Information
- 2 hours
- 2 CPD
Inclusions
- Over 1.5 Hours of Video Lecture
- Course Completion Certificate
- Self assessment
Material Downloads
Instructors
Dr Lilian Zou Consultant Psychiatrist | Eating Disorders and General Psychiatry
Dr Lilian Zou is a consultant psychiatrist with extensive experience in the assessment and management of a variety of psychiatric conditions, including eating disorders, anxiety, mood disorders, psychosis, trauma, personality disorders, OCD and ADHD. Dr Zou works in the eating disorders inpatient unit at Ramsay Clinic Northside and sees outpatients at Tikvah Clinic in Woollahra.
Dr Karen Spielman General Practitioner | Psychological Medicine and Eating Disorders
Dr Karen Spielman is a General Practitioner in Sydney with a special interest and expertise in Psychological Medicine, Youth Health and Eating Disorders. She is the current Chair of the RACGP Psychological Medicine Specific Interest Group and GP Consultant and Research Associate at InsideOut Institute for Eating Disorders at the University of Sydney. Dr Spielman is a Credentialed Eating Disorder Clinician and Fellow of the Australian Society for Psychological Medicine, and is involved in education, research and advocacy for GPs in the field of eating disorders.
Dr. Sanil Rege Host - MBBS, MRCPsych, FRANZCP
With extensive teaching experience through psychiatry education initiatives, Sanil is recognised as a motivational training facilitator and educator who promotes insightful collaboration and discussion
As the Academic Lead of Psych Scene and Chief Editor of Psych Scene Hub, he aspires to make a difference in mental health by empowering Healthcare Professionals to advance their skills and career through the provision of specialised education and training
Sanil is also founder of Vita Healthcare, a private clinic in Mount Eliza specialising in adult mental healthcare, with over 20 years of clinical experience and 13 years of private practice experience treating disorders across the spectrum. He currently works in the community, across in-patient, consultation-liaison and addiction psychiatry spaces.
