Physician’s Assistant/Nurse Practitioner for Precision Mental Health

The Center for Precision Mental Health in Stanford University’s School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is seeking an experienced Nurse Practitioner/ Physician’s Assistant to take a leading clinical implementation role in an innovative program of precision medicine trials in mental health.

This is a high-accountability clinical research position for an experienced clinician who wants greater ownership than a conventional clinical role typically provides. The successful candidate will have primary responsibility for the day-to-day clinical treatment management and implementation of participant-facing clinical pathways across our trials, within protocol, delegated responsibilities, and scope of practice. The role is not limited to individual study visits: the clinician is expected to own the pathway across screening, medication taper/washout, treatment initiation and titration, ongoing safety and response monitoring, participant check-ins, and study completion.

A central expectation is proactive execution and timely clinical decision-making. The clinician will maintain sufficient participant-facing capacity to meet study recruitment and treatment timelines, personally managing an active caseload while coordinating physician and other clinician coverage when needed. They will support multiple participants moving through overlapping treatment pathways, anticipate upcoming clinical needs, ensure required check-ins and treatment decisions occur on time, and identify and resolve clinical workflow bottlenecks before they delay enrollment, treatment, or retention.

The clinician will have substantial responsibility for how participant-facing clinical work is organized and delivered. This includes proactively arranging clinician coverage for medical screens and medication-management visits, preparing concise case summaries and action requests, ensuring physician-level decisions are obtained when required, and following through so orders, visits, and documentation are completed on schedule. Research coordinators will provide scheduling and administrative support; the NP is expected to give clear direction for these tasks while retaining responsibility for clinical continuity and execution.

The ideal candidate is a confident, decisive, highly organized psychiatric clinician who enjoys managing patients, getting things done, and working at the interface of clinical care and scientific innovation. They will combine sound clinical judgment with urgency, follow-through, and comfort leading multidisciplinary workflows. They should be able to distinguish decisions that can be made and executed within protocol and scope of practice from those requiring physician medical judgment, and escalate the latter promptly without unnecessarily slowing study progress. Strong participant rapport is essential because it supports safety, adherence, and retention; success in this role is defined by safe clinical management, reliable execution, timely decision-making, and ownership of the full clinical pathway.

The position combines the clinical responsibility and decision-making of an advanced-practice role with the opportunity to help shape how emerging precision psychiatry approaches are translated into clinical research practice. Day to day, the NP will assess psychiatric and physical health, manage protocol-defined treatments within scope of practice, monitor response and adverse events, and coordinate care in trials that integrate brain-based measures - including functional MRI - with personalized selection of exploratory and targeted interventions. These are among the first trials of their kind, and the clinician will contribute directly to refining how these protocols are implemented in practice.

Core responsibilities include:

• Direct day-to-day clinical treatment management of research participants across screening, treatment, monitoring, and study completion.
• Conduct medical and psychiatric screening, review medical history, medications, laboratory and safety data, and determine or support protocol-defined clinical eligibility.
• Develop and execute medication taper/washout plans and treatment-management plans; prescribe/furnish, titrate, refill, and monitor medications as permitted by protocol and scope of practice.
• Monitor clinical symptoms, suicidality, treatment response, adherence, side effects, vital signs, and adverse events; triage and escalate physician-level medical decisions promptly.
• Maintain sufficient participant-facing clinical capacity to meet study recruitment and treatment timelines; personally manage an active caseload while supporting multiple participants in overlapping treatment phases and ensuring check-ins, medication decisions, and safety assessments occur at the required cadence.
• Coordinate physician and other clinician coverage across the week so clinical capacity does not become a bottleneck; communicate concise clinical summaries, required actions, and deadlines and ensure follow-through.
• Provide clear work direction to research coordinators for scheduling, reminders, forms, follow-up imaging/visits, and other administrative tasks supporting the clinical pathway.
• Complete clinical notes, medication records, adverse-event documentation, and protocol-required source/REDCap documentation accurately and on time.
• Collaborate closely with the principal investigator, study physicians, scientific leads, and clinical research staff to implement protocols consistently and resolve clinical workflow bottlenecks.
• Participate in protocol implementation, study design discussions, and onboarding/training of clinicians and research staff who interface with participant-facing clinical activities.

The Research Nurse Practitioner/ Physician’s Assistant will work under the direction of the principal investigator, in close collaboration with study psychiatrists and other physicians, and alongside a multidisciplinary team of scientists, data analysts, and clinical research professionals.

The Center for Precision Mental Health is funded by NIH grants and philanthropic support, with a mission to understand depression and anxiety as disorders of individual brain circuits. Our goal is to innovate personalized treatment approaches that move beyond the traditional 'trial-and-error' method, ultimately improving the lives of those affected by these conditions. The Center and its core labs offer a dynamic, rigorous, and fast-moving research environment in which advanced-practice clinicians work directly with scientific and physician leaders to implement emerging precision mental health approaches.

This is a full-time (100% FTE), fully on-site position, scheduled for four hours per day, Monday–Friday. The clinician will coordinate closely with study physicians and other clinical staff to ensure continuity of participant care outside their scheduled hours.

CERTIFICATIONS & LICENSES:

• Licensed as a Registered Nurse by the California State Board of Registered Nursing. Certified as Nurse Practitioner by the California State Board of Registered Nursing.

• Eligibility to obtain a Nurse Practitioner Furnishing (NPF) Certificate, in accordance with Business and Professions Code, Section 2836.1. California Code of Regulations, Section 1480, et seq.

  Or

• Certification to practice as a physician assistant issued by the California State Board of Medical Quality Assurance. Certification from the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants.

Core Duties:

• Ensure the safety of study participants, and maintain communication with their families/caregivers and clinicians.

• Provide clinical and administrative medical support and oversight for research clinical trials based on scope of practice; obtain complete study participant history, conduct physical exams, review medical charts, assess findings, prescribe and re-fill medication, and perform designated procedures according to written protocols.

• Collaborate with clinical staff, researchers, outside vendors, and other staff to administer treatment and study protocols.

• Assess, grade, and document adverse events; apply triage and judgment to determine course of action.

• Oversee and, as needed, administer medications and treatments per study protocol and scope of practice.

• Comply with institutional policies, standard operating procedures, and guidelines; prepare and submit documentation as required by the study protocol and study sponsor; interpret complex protocols and regulatory requirements.

• Coordinate and collaborate with principal investigator to review study protocol; assess and analyze feasibility, budget projections, and staffing needs.

• Supervise and train non-clinical and clinical staff/students, as needed.

• Identify, recruit, and enroll study participants, as well as maintain study participant records; determine study participant criteria.

• Support sponsor investigator research with investigational new drug/investigational device exemption applications.

Minimum Education and Experience

Bachelor’s degree and three years of relevant experience, or a combination of education and relevant experience.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Ability to provide work direction to research support staff.

• Demonstrate understanding of Good Clinical Practices and regulatory compliance.

• Demonstrate ability to perform the functions of the position with minimal supervision.

• Verbal and written communication skills to convey medical and research-related information to research subjects of all ages and backgrounds.

• Ability to identify confidential and sensitive information (written and verbal).

• Ability to implement Good Clinical Practices in all interactions with study participants, their families and colleagues.

• Ability to identify adverse reactions to study treatments and perform the required study protocol documentation to record these activities.

• Ability to implement study protocols with minimal supervision.

Certificates and Licenses Required

Certification to practice as a physician assistant issued by the California State Board of Medical Quality Assurance. Certification from the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants.

Current basic CPR certification.