In his Acceptance Speech after being installed as the President of Indian Psychiatric Society, Dr Gautam Saha gave a deeply passionate and erudite deliverance filled with gratitude and humility. He remembered the Birth Anniversary of Late Girindra Sekhar Bose, the legendary father of Psychoanalysis in India and paid his homage to his Late mother with teary eyes. He was full of joy to see his father and his entire family in the audience. He thanked individually all his school and college friends who were present and all his senior and junior fellows in Indian Psychiatric Society. He paid his tribute to all his teachers and mentors for their guidance, blessings and motivation in his career. He was touched by the love showed by his seniors who travelled all the way to Kolkata to attend the Installation ceremony. Finally he earmarked the Young Brigade in Psychiatry, his friends in life and his loving wife as the main strengths in his life.
Dr Saha then presented the One Year Action Plan for 2020 – 2021. He mentioned that this year has been unprecedented and is a historic moment of crisis and challenge. He acknowledged that the road ahead will be long and the climb will be steep. Though we may not get there in one year, he promised to build the roads and bridges in our united path forward. He appealed to each and every one of the fellows in IPS to deliver the action plan for the coming year.
One Year Action Plan for Indian Psychiatric Society ( 2021 – 2022) – 6 point agenda
- Education, Training and Research
- Collaboration and Partnership with Government and other Agencies
- Advocacy of Mental Health
- Collaboration with International Psychiatric Associations
- Suicide Help Line
- Liaison with Other Medical Specialties
- Education, Training and Research:
A separate Academic Wing of IPS, with selected subcommittees will look into these areas. The academic wing will have the following sub-committees/task forces reportable to it, and under its wing:
- CME Committee-
- The CME committee will oversee the calendar of activities in the IPS. Also, each zone will be given themes for the year so that they replicate similar scientific sessions in their zones creating a standardization of activities all around.
- Digital CME—For ongoing psychiatric training and education to work further on the theme of Smart Psychiatry which was launched last year at ANCIPS 2020.
- Develop Online CME programmes with credit hours for the trainees and Junior psychiatrists. They will be divided into training CME’s which will be held throughout the year and CME’s hosted by various sub-committees which can easily merge digitally and avoid over presence in an offline platform.
- The academic wing will facilitate all the activities and try to see that the calendar is neither overloaded nor bare.
- Post graduate training committee: This committee will liaison with colleges across the country to ensure a standard of education that is maintained across. The committee can have surveillance audits and checks to ensure that all centers provide a baseline education to psychiatry trainees. It will also oversee PDF, DM and higher courses.
- Undergraduate training committee: Objectives will be to have a separate paper for psychiatry and recognition in undergraduate training. The committee will oversee the curriculum and methods of training for UG students. This pandemic has increased the acceptance amongst all that mental health is a priority and we should capitalize on this.
- Research and Education Foundation
- Develop a National Level of Registry for less researched entities.
- Promote multi-centric studies and research on mental health issues under the aegis of Research and Education Foundation of Indian Psychiatric Society.
- Promote more publications under the aegis of IPS.
- Collaboration and Partnership with Government and other Agencies
- Collaborate with the Government and policymakers to address the mental health issues, including stigma associated with mental illnesses.
- Increase reservation for people with mental illnesses under the disability provisions
- Working with Media Groups – Collaborating with a popular TV / radio channel (any which has the maximum outreach across most cities so that they dedicate 2 hours per week on one show related to mental health. The local psychiatric society/branch of the IPS can designate the member to speak in the show by turns. This would in turn increase awareness and acceptance. Systematic use of Social Media Sites for raising awareness of Mental Health Issues
- Advocacy of Mental Health
Dr Saha believes that the most appropriate way of delivering efficient, cost- effective, streamlined, patient and carer friendly services will be to Advocate for the services. One can put his effort to open 5 clinics and serve the population from 5 centers of his own. But if he can advocate for the services, and convince the Government to invest in mental health care, then he can be part of the process where 500 clinics will be opened from the funding received and 500 centers will be serving people with mental health needs.
- Collaboration with International Psychiatric Associations
IPS will be working closely with the following bodies –
- World Psychiatric Association
- Royal College of Psychiatry, UK
- British Indian Psychiatric Association
- World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry
- International Alliance for Mental Health
- Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists
- Indo – American Psychiatric Association
- and SAARC Associations
IPS has signed MoU with some of these organizations and will be taking forward discussions of collaborative and partnership working with others to take IPS to the Global platform
5.National Suicide Help Line
Dr Saha mentioned that this was one of the most immediate and urgent action plans that he wished to achieve at the start of his tenure. We are losing too many people in our country to suicide and there are 381 completed suicides every day. This translates to 16 suicides every hour or 1 suicide every 225 second. Further, for every completed suicide, there are 20 more who have attempted, which means every day there are 7620 families affected by a person at home who try to commit suicide.
- Liaison with Other Medical Specialties
- Develop Certificate Courses for Non-Psychiatric Medical Professionals on different Mental Health Topics. This will train professionals in other specialties to assess identify mental health issues at an early stage.
- Liaison Psychiatry services will be developed specially focusing on services with Internal Medicine, Community Medicine and Pediatric Medicine.
With these words, Dr Gautam Saha concluded the Presidential Acceptance Speech of 2021.
