ADHD assessment and treatment

Gerard is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who also works in general adult psychiatry, and assesses and treats ADHD across both. That span matters for a condition that does not stop at eighteen: he can follow a young person into adult life, and he can assess an adult whose difficulties started in a childhood nobody looked at properly.

ADHD is rarely the only thing present. Anxiety, depression, autism, trauma, sleep disturbance and, in adults, substance use either sit alongside it or account for the symptoms outright, and separating them is the substance of the assessment. At Pandion these are screened as standard rather than treated as an optional extra. Where ADHD is not the right answer, that is said clearly, along with what the assessment did find.

His training at Coral Tree Family Service gave him a strong grounding in family-focused therapeutic approaches, which is useful in ADHD work more often than not. ADHD shows up in a family rather than in isolation, it affects everyone in the house, and it has a strong hereditary component. A clinician used to working with the whole family rather than only the person in front of them is well placed for that.

Background and training

Gerard completed postgraduate medical studies at the University of Queensland, and worked in critical care medicine, anaesthetics, emergency and intensive care before moving into psychiatry.

His specialist training began on the Central Coast more than a decade ago, where he undertook basic psychiatry training before focusing on child and adolescent psychiatry at Westmead Children’s Hospital. He went on to refine his skills at Coral Tree Family Service, before returning to the Central Coast to complete advanced training.

Over the years he has worked across child and adolescent mental health services nationwide, which has given him a broad and balanced view of the difficulties young people face. His career has taken him across much of Australia, though Tasmania and the Northern Territory remain on his to-visit list.

He now divides his time between telehealth practice and a regional New South Wales clinic.

Outside the clinic

Gerard is running a reforestation project on his five-acre property, with the enthusiastic assistance of his wolfhound and bull arab, whose digging efforts are as ambitious as they are uninvited.