Massachusetts General Hospital and the Shanghai Mental Health Center: the past, present and future of a psychiatric research partnership

摘要

INTRODUCTION There are many obstacles to developing,maintaining and strengthening international research collaborations,whether they are posed by geography,culture or,most recently,global economics and politics.It is critically important to overcome these obstacles,especially when it comes to fostering the types of breakthrough biomedical science that benefit from diverse perspectives,methodologies and data sets.Moreover,the research underlying these breakthroughs unfolds over the course of years,and even decades.For these reasons,and more,the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital(Mass General)and the Shanghai Mental Health Center(SMHC)are taking the long view:exploring and implementing numerous collaborative research and training projects that are leading to better care and treatments for patients,both in the USA and China,who suffer from a range of psychiatric disorders.