• Psychiatry

Waguih William IsHak, MD, FAPA, is a professor and clinical chief of psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai and clinical professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. IsHak has more than 30 years of experience in psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychopharmacology, with specific expertise in outcome measurement in psychiatric disorders particularly depressive symptom severity, functioning, and quality of life. He is researching innovative ways to measure and improve the detection and treatment of depression in people seeking medical care, as a way to restore/maintain health in the population at large in order to remove behavioral barriers to wellness. Dr. IsHak has lectured and published on quality of life as a critical outcome measure of healthcare interventions, mood disorders especially depression, sexual medicine, outcome measurement in psychiatry, and computer applications in psychiatry. He was also the author and designer of Health Education Programs for the Public, including the Online Depression Screening Test (ODST), Online Screening for Anxiety (OSA) and Online Screening Tests for Sexual Disorders. He has edited and authored four books: The Textbook of Clinical Sexual Medicine (Springer, 2017), Guidebook of Sexual Medicine (A&W Publishing, 2008), Outcome Measurement in Psychiatry: A Critical Review (APPI, 2002) and On Call Psychiatry (WB Saunders, 2001). He is the editor of the upcoming Handbook of Wellness Medicine (Cambridge University Press, 2019). His articles have appeared in many prestigious journals, such as JAMA Psychiatry, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Harvard Review of Psychiatry, Journal of Affective Disorders, Journal of Sexual Medicine, Journal of Graduate Medical Education, and Quality of Life Research. Dr. IsHak served as a Chief Proctor and Examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

• Medical School: Cairo University, 1987
• Internship: New York University Medical Center, 1993
• Residency: New York University Medical Center, 1994
• Fellowship: New York University Medical Center, 1998

• Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences
• Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences

• Elected to the Gold Humanism Honor Society, 2012
• Nancy Roeske Award for Excellence in Medical Student Education, American Psychiatric Association, 2012
• Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, 2012
• Excellence in Education Award, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 2011
• Outstanding Medical Student Teaching Award, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Science at UCLA, 2007

Click here for a list of peer-reviewed publications.

• The Textbook of Clinical Sexual Medicine, Springer International Publishing, 2017. http://goo.gl/hWdSFQ
• IsHak WW, Wen RY, Naghdechi L, Vanle B, Dang J, Knosp M, Dascal J, Marcia L,Gohar Y, Eskander L, Yadegar J, Hanna S, Sadek A, Aguilar-Hernandez L, Danovitch I, Louy C. Pain and Depression: A Systematic Review. Harvard Review of Psychiatry. 2018Nov/Dec;26(6):352-363.
• IsHak WW, Bonifay W, Collison K, Reid M, Youssef H, Parisi T, Cohen RM, Cai L.The recovery index: A novel approach to measuring recovery and predicting remission in major depressive disorder. J Affect Disord. 2017 Jan 15;208:369-374.