Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Welcome to my new Presidential blog. Through
this blog, I hope to keep you updated on key issues at the College
- and give you a flavour of some of the work I do as your
President. All the work I do is centred around promoting the role,
purpose and value of doctors who are psychiatrists. Through
working with other mental health professionals and the voluntary
sector, and through trying to shape policy across governments, I
hope to improve services for those with mental illness.
I met recently with leaders in psychology,
social work, occupational therapy and nursing. We discussed many
topics, but one that emerged was what more we could be doing to
ensure that our in-patients had not only improved mental health,
but good physical health. So we'll be starting a project to look at
this. I suspect many of you will already be involved in local
intiatives, and I would love to hear from you (there's a comment
box below).
I started this week with a meeting with the
Communications and Policy department, to update them on my
priorities over the next three years. It is usual for RCPsych
Presidents to have a campaign, and I am keen to keep up this
tradition by implementing a campaign focusing on the needs of
vulnerable groups. A proposal will go to the College’s Public
Education Committee, our Service User Recovery Forum and our
Carers’ Forum for their input, before going to College Council.
Our key focus must be on recruitment,
retention and career progression. Over the last few years, there
have been lots of individual threads of work going on within the
College. Last month, I drew together all the key players who have
been doing this work, so we can discuss how to pull these threads
together and how we can get the most from the work.
Dr Tom Brown, our recently-appointed Associate
Registrar for Recruitment, will be co-ordinating this work. He has
a huge number of ideas, which he will be presenting to Divisional
and Faculty chairs at the next Council meeting on 16 September.
Personally, I think it is vital that we
improve all young doctors’ mental health awareness and skills, and
I would like to see GPs gaining more experience of psychiatry as
part of their training. We must also show medical students what
fantastic career opportunities there are within the specialty, and
ensure they have positive exposure to psychiatry.
It’s rare for the President’s diary to have a
spare moment and my PA at the College, Jo Davies, does a fantastic
job squeezing everything in. Wednesday will start with a phone
conversation with Professor Peter Woodruff, chair of our Academic
Faculty. I am committed to keeping in close contact with Faculties,
Sections and Special Interest Groups, so they can update me on
their work and their priorities. This chat will be followed by
meetings with the Mental Health Foundation and Centre for
Sustainable Policy.
On Thursday, Kent, Surrey and Sussex Deanery’s
School of Psychiatry will be holding their Training
and Induction Day for 40 trainees in Belgrave Square.
The session will provide important information on the Psychiatry
training programme, the use of electronic logbooks and an
opportunity to meet the key players in the Deanery and College. I’m
looking forward to speaking at the event, and trainees will enjoy a
behind-the-scenes tour of the College building at the end of the
day.
I’ll finish off my week by focusing on
international affairs, with a global mental health meeting at the
Royal Society of Medicine and a meeting of the College’s
International Advisory Committee. Then it’s back up to Manchester
for the weekend.
Sue
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