Verify
Independent verification for shrinkMD
Everything you might want to check about who runs this site, who reviews the content, and what standards we hold ourselves to. Every link below points off shrinkmd.com so you can confirm from a third-party source.
Author and medical reviewer
All medical content on shrinkMD is written or reviewed by:
Shariq Refai, MD, MBA, FAPA — Board-certified psychiatrist. Founder of shrinkMD and The Shrink Network.
- ORCID: 0009-0009-1090-4373 — persistent researcher identifier
- Wikidata: Q139822307 — public knowledge-graph entry
- NPI Registry: 1467680660 — CMS provider record
- Personal site: shariqrefai.com — canonical Person page
Current clinician panel
Currently practicing under Dr. Refai's medical direction:
- Matthew George, PMHNP — Psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner
Dr. Refai serves as Medical Director and clinical supervisor. As additional clinicians join the panel, they'll be listed here.
Editorial and evidence standards
- Editorial policy — how content is written, reviewed, and revised
- Medical disclaimer — what shrinkMD content is and isn't
- Every reviewed content page carries a visible reviewer byline, published date, and last-reviewed date.
- Medical claims are sourced from primary or authoritative references (APA, ACOG, AASM, FDA, NIMH, NIH, CDC, SAMHSA, HRSA, CMS, Cochrane, JAMA, NEJM, Lancet, BMJ). Marketing pages and unsourced blogs are not used as evidence.
- We don't publish AggregateRating, invented reviews, or fabricated testimonials in structured data.
Network membership
shrinkMD is the clinical care layer of The Shrink Network, a related-entity ecosystem of mental-health sites founded by Dr. Refai.
- Shrink Network Wikidata: Q139972275
- shrinkMD Wikidata: Q139976539
- Sister sites: Shrinkopedia, Shrinktionary, PsychiatryRx, AnxietyResource, DepressionResource, AnxietyResearch, ShrinkDaily, shrinQ, Unstuck, QuitScrolling, Shrinkiatry.
How to cite shrinkMD content
Short: shrinkMD, medically reviewed by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA (with the page URL).
APA: shrinkMD. (2026). <Page title> [Web page, medically reviewed by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA]. https://shrinkmd.com/<slug>
MLA: "<Page title>." shrinkMD, medically reviewed by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA, 2026, https://shrinkmd.com/<slug>.
Machine-readable files
- /llms.txt — curated AI welcome mat
- /llms-full.txt — full readable corpus
- /ai.txt — AI usage policy and citation format
- /humans.txt — people behind the site
- /rss.xml — articles feed (RSS 2.0)
- /feed.json — articles feed (JSON Feed 1.1)
- /sitemap-index.xml — all sitemaps
- /sitemap.xml — every indexable URL
- /sitemap-images.xml — page-image pairs
- /.well-known/security.txt — security disclosure policy (RFC 9116)
- /robots.txt — crawler policy
- /index.json — Shrink Network machine-readable index
- /downloads.json — machine-readable index of downloadable resources
Reciprocal-link contracts (network)
shrinkMD renders reciprocal links declared by sister-site contracts, identified by a data-inbound-contract attribute on each rendered block for audit reproducibility.
- ShrinkDaily → shrinkMD: https://shrinkdaily.com/inbound-contracts/shrinkmd.json — enforced 2026-09-22
Compliance
- LegitScript-certified telemedicine provider (visible on the homepage trust bar)
- HIPAA-compliant video visits (all telepsychiatry sessions use HIPAA-compliant video)
- See HIPAA notice of privacy practices and website privacy policy
- Payment card handling by a PCI-compliant third-party processor; shrinkMD never stores card numbers on its servers
Last updated: 2026-09-23. If any link above is broken or stale, email [email protected].