Dr. Thomas Bittker, MD, MA

Expert Publications

• Physician expectations and the changing culture of medical practice: can we adapt?
• Health maintenance organizations and psychiatric care.
• Intentional isoniazid overdosage among southwestern American Indians.
• Arizona revisited.
• The industrialization of American psychiatry.
• Videotape production by medical educators: some practical considerations.
• Key concepts in the diagnosis and management of depression for the family physician. Management, Part II.
• Key concepts in the diagnosis and management of depression for the family physician. Management, Part II.
• Differential effects of "congruence," stimulus meaning, and information of early and late components of the average evoked response.
• Observations on healing and the physician's role.
• Observations on healing and the physician's role.
• Neuroleptic drugs and tardive dyskinesia.
• The evolution of psychiatric services in a health maintenance organization.
• The evolution of psychiatric services in a health maintenance organization.
• Anxiety-spectrum disturbances.

Media Releases

Get to know Psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Bittker, who serves patients in Reno, Nevada.

Dr. Bittker is a general and forensic psychiatrist at Reno Psychiatric Associates in Nevada. He has a special interest in the comprehensive life-management of mood, anxiety, and attention disorders as well as ways to sustain cognitive performance throughout life.

Bringing to his practice a career-long study of holistic medicine, his training is in psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy as well as transcultural medicine. Dr. Bittker views treatment as a process that emerges from an optimal partnership between a patient and their psychiatrist that seeks as a goal of highest possible long-term functioning. That functioning includes one’s health, relationships and ultimately one’s ability to confidently master the challenges in his or her life.

Back in the early days of his academic career, Dr. Bittker graduated with honors with his medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1965. He then trained both at Harvard and Stanford University where he completed his residency and earned a graduate degree in cultural anthropology. 

A Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, he is board-certified in general psychiatry and forensic psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN). The ABPN is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to serving the professions of psychiatry and neurology.

Retaining an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, Dr. Bittker is also a lecturer at the National Judicial College.

Testifying regularly in both Federal and District courts, his career includes assignments with the U.S. Peace Corps, the National Institutes of Health, and as the Medical Director of a 200 physician multispecialty practice.

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behavior, cognition, and perceptions. Psychiatrists evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients with mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders. They conduct thorough psychiatric evaluations, develop treatment plans, prescribe medication, and evaluate treatment results.

Throughout his line of work, Dr. Bittker has authored more than 40 publications on subjects ranging from long-distance running, health economics, to the treatment of depression and anxiety spectrum disturbances. 

Also, he has been the recipient of several awards and honors, including Compassionate Doctor Recognition (2014), Patients’ Choice Award (2018, 2017, 2014), and On-Time Doctor Award (2018, 2017).

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