482
ANZJP Correspondence
operating with fragile and inconsistent funding in attempting to provide psychosocial support and counselling. In 2013, the Bougainville Mental Health Steering Group (BMHSG) was established. An expatriate team (DT, DS and PB) was invited to undertake a consultancy to Bougainville in 2014. Meetings of the team with the BMHSG (including BM, LG and EB) and other stakeholders confirmed many of the previous observations (Tierney, 2013), including the paucity of resources to meet core mental health needs, widespread, untreated traumatic stress reactions, and broader psychosocial issues impacting on the community, including family conflict, increased gender-based violence (including sexual assault), social and cultural disruptions resulting in antisocial behaviour, and adverse trans-generational impacts on children and youth. A strategic framework was submitted to the Bougainville Government in 2014. Recommendations include: (1) undertaking research on MH&PSS needs and current services (formal and traditional); (2) establishing a comprehensive community-based model of mental healthcare and
treatment, piloting the model in one region, then rolling it out across Bougainville; (3) initiating steps to develop a comprehensive mental health policy and legislation; and (4) raising awareness and promoting advocacy aimed at highlighting MH&PSS issues. Although systematic data are limited, observations from Bougainville coincide with those derived from the post-conflict field internationally in identifying the need for core community mental health services, skills to address traumatic stress reactions, and community strategies to address family and broader psychosocial issues arising from the Crisis (Silove and Steel, 2006). Australia has a long history of providing expert support, training and resources to our island neighbours in developing mental health systems and capacity, for example, in TimorLeste. A program of support for Bougainville would be timely given the level of unmet needs in the territory and the strong commitment among indigenous leaders and stakeholders to address MH&PSS issues.
Declaration of interest
Building capacity in academic psychiatry: The Queensland Mental Health Research Alliance Shuichi Suetani1, Bjorn Burgher2, Duncan McLean1, Michael Breakspear2,3 and John McGrath1,4
We note with interest a recent cluster of articles in the Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (Henderson et al., 2015; Lewis and Jorm, 2015) and Australasian Psychiatry (Kisely, 2015) on the topic of academic psychiatry. These articles highlight problems in recruitment and capacity building in academic psychiatry. Why aren’t more psychiatric registrars and junior psychiatrists engaged in research and attracted to research careers? The re-introduction of a Scholarly Project is a positive step by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) to foster that crucial clinical curiosity in trainees. In this commentary, we would like to discuss new developments designed specifically to encourage capacity building in academic psychiatry in Queensland. In 2013, three leading academic centres in Brisbane formed the
Queensland Mental Health Research Alliance. The three founding partners in the Alliance are the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute and the Queensland Brain Institute (University of Queensland). In addition to consolidating and growing collaborative research between these three peak mental health research bodies, the Alliance aims to ‘synergize efforts to build capacity within mental health research – in particular to recruit and train clinicians in mental health research and to attract emerging mental research leaders to Queensland’. The Alliance quickly identified a need to invest in research training for psychiatric registrars. Research seminars have been held with a specific focus on opportunities for clinicians interested in commencing a PhD. Based on the goodwill generated
1Queensland
Centre for Mental Health Research, The Park Centre for Mental Health, Wacol, QLD, Australia 2Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Herston, QLD, Australia 3QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, QLD, Australia 4The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Corresponding author: John McGrath, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia. Email: [email protected] DOI: 10.1177/0004867415577980
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 49(5)
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
Funding Funding for the 2014 Consultancy was provided by Counterpart International as part of a two-year Women Peace Building Initiatives project in Bougainville supported by USAID. The program aims to address the issues of gender empowerment, civil society capacity building, postconflict recovery, policy development and advocacy.
References Boege V (2009) Peacebuilding and state formation in post-conflict Bougainville. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 21: 29–37. Braithwaite J, Charlesworth H, Reddy P, et al. (2010) Reconciliation and architectures of commitment: Sequencing of peace in Bougainville. Canberra: ANU E Press. Silove D and Steel Z (2006) Understanding community psychosocial needs after disasters: Implications for mental health services. Journal of Postgraduate Medicine 52: 121–125. Regan AJ (1998) Current developments in the Pacific: causes and course of the Bougainville conflict. Journal of Pacific History 33: 269–285. Tierney D (2013) Assessing the interest in building the mental health capacity in Bougainville. June.
483
ANZJP Correspondence within the three founding partners and associated local hospital and health services, funds were identified to support three Research Fellowships for psychiatric registrars. The positions are for 2 years, at half-time research and half-time clinical training. Henderson et al. (2015) called for a ‘coalition of the willing’ between health providers (e.g. governments) and academic settings (e.g. universities, Medical Research Institutes) to fund training in academic psychiatry. Queensland researchers have responded to these same needs. Similar training positions have also been funded by the New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry. This year, two basic trainees under the 2012 Competency Based Programme were awarded Research Fellowships. Even though there is much goodwill among the participating academic and health partners, these fellows will have to juggle roles and responsibilities in not only research but also in services provision and training. Moreover, although it was not a focus of the recent editorials, the personal cost of such endeavours, in particular striking the right work–life balance, can also be challenging. Despite these challenges, we are optimistic that the new Queensland Research Fellowships will provide the
trainees with an environment where they can learn research and clinical skills at the same time. We believe that it takes a mix of curiosity, passion and tenacity to build a research scientist, and these fellowships will kindle these characteristics in trainees (McGrath, 2014). There is a vast amount of untapped clinical wisdom in our profession that awaits scientific scrutiny. Apart from harnessing clinical skills, we need to train psychiatrists to actively engage with the broad discipline of neuroscience and genetics. The pace of discovery in neuroscience is remarkable, and now, more than ever, psychiatrists need to engage in multidisciplinary research with basic scientists. Put bluntly, if we want to fix broken brains, we first need to understand how healthy brains are built and how they work (Fornito et al., 2015). We need clinical researchers who can generate novel treatments and design better ways to deliver services. How can we best incubate the next John Cade? We hope that these initiatives from the Queensland Mental Health Research Alliance will encourage other centres in Australia and New Zealand to trial similar experiments. Acknowledgements We thank our research and clinical partners in supporting the creation of the Queensland
Mental Health Research Alliance and embedded clinical research fellowships, namely, Frank Gannon, Perry Bartlett, Brett Emmerson, Sharon Kelly, Terry Stedman and David Crompton.
Declaration of interest The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
Funding JM is supported by a NHMRC John Cade Fellowship (APP1062846). See Editorial by Henderson et al., 2015, 49(1): 9–12; see also Editorial by Lewis and Jorm, 2015(2): 99–101.
References Fornito A, Zelesky A and Breakspear M (2015) The connectomics of brain disorders. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 16: 1–14. Henderson S, Porter RJ, Basset D, et al. (2015) Why academic psychiatry is endangered. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 49: 9–12. Kisely S (2015) Can the next generation of clinician-scientists please step forward? Australasian Psychiatry 23: 5–6. Lewis AJ and Jorm AF (2015) Academic psychiatry – Extinction or adaptation to a changing world: A view from clinical psychology. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 49: 99–101. McGrath JJ (2014) The John Cade Fellowship: Modifiable risk factors for serious mental illness. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 48: 13–16.
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 49(5)
Copyright of Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
ANZJP Correspondence
operating with fragile and inconsistent funding in attempting to provide psychosocial support and counselling. In 2013, the Bougainville Mental Health Steering Group (BMHSG) was established. An expatriate team (DT, DS and PB) was invited to undertake a consultancy to Bougainville in 2014. Meetings of the team with the BMHSG (including BM, LG and EB) and other stakeholders confirmed many of the previous observations (Tierney, 2013), including the paucity of resources to meet core mental health needs, widespread, untreated traumatic stress reactions, and broader psychosocial issues impacting on the community, including family conflict, increased gender-based violence (including sexual assault), social and cultural disruptions resulting in antisocial behaviour, and adverse trans-generational impacts on children and youth. A strategic framework was submitted to the Bougainville Government in 2014. Recommendations include: (1) undertaking research on MH&PSS needs and current services (formal and traditional); (2) establishing a comprehensive community-based model of mental healthcare and
treatment, piloting the model in one region, then rolling it out across Bougainville; (3) initiating steps to develop a comprehensive mental health policy and legislation; and (4) raising awareness and promoting advocacy aimed at highlighting MH&PSS issues. Although systematic data are limited, observations from Bougainville coincide with those derived from the post-conflict field internationally in identifying the need for core community mental health services, skills to address traumatic stress reactions, and community strategies to address family and broader psychosocial issues arising from the Crisis (Silove and Steel, 2006). Australia has a long history of providing expert support, training and resources to our island neighbours in developing mental health systems and capacity, for example, in TimorLeste. A program of support for Bougainville would be timely given the level of unmet needs in the territory and the strong commitment among indigenous leaders and stakeholders to address MH&PSS issues.
Declaration of interest
Building capacity in academic psychiatry: The Queensland Mental Health Research Alliance Shuichi Suetani1, Bjorn Burgher2, Duncan McLean1, Michael Breakspear2,3 and John McGrath1,4
We note with interest a recent cluster of articles in the Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (Henderson et al., 2015; Lewis and Jorm, 2015) and Australasian Psychiatry (Kisely, 2015) on the topic of academic psychiatry. These articles highlight problems in recruitment and capacity building in academic psychiatry. Why aren’t more psychiatric registrars and junior psychiatrists engaged in research and attracted to research careers? The re-introduction of a Scholarly Project is a positive step by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) to foster that crucial clinical curiosity in trainees. In this commentary, we would like to discuss new developments designed specifically to encourage capacity building in academic psychiatry in Queensland. In 2013, three leading academic centres in Brisbane formed the
Queensland Mental Health Research Alliance. The three founding partners in the Alliance are the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute and the Queensland Brain Institute (University of Queensland). In addition to consolidating and growing collaborative research between these three peak mental health research bodies, the Alliance aims to ‘synergize efforts to build capacity within mental health research – in particular to recruit and train clinicians in mental health research and to attract emerging mental research leaders to Queensland’. The Alliance quickly identified a need to invest in research training for psychiatric registrars. Research seminars have been held with a specific focus on opportunities for clinicians interested in commencing a PhD. Based on the goodwill generated
1Queensland
Centre for Mental Health Research, The Park Centre for Mental Health, Wacol, QLD, Australia 2Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Herston, QLD, Australia 3QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, QLD, Australia 4The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Corresponding author: John McGrath, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia. Email: [email protected] DOI: 10.1177/0004867415577980
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 49(5)
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
Funding Funding for the 2014 Consultancy was provided by Counterpart International as part of a two-year Women Peace Building Initiatives project in Bougainville supported by USAID. The program aims to address the issues of gender empowerment, civil society capacity building, postconflict recovery, policy development and advocacy.
References Boege V (2009) Peacebuilding and state formation in post-conflict Bougainville. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 21: 29–37. Braithwaite J, Charlesworth H, Reddy P, et al. (2010) Reconciliation and architectures of commitment: Sequencing of peace in Bougainville. Canberra: ANU E Press. Silove D and Steel Z (2006) Understanding community psychosocial needs after disasters: Implications for mental health services. Journal of Postgraduate Medicine 52: 121–125. Regan AJ (1998) Current developments in the Pacific: causes and course of the Bougainville conflict. Journal of Pacific History 33: 269–285. Tierney D (2013) Assessing the interest in building the mental health capacity in Bougainville. June.
483
ANZJP Correspondence within the three founding partners and associated local hospital and health services, funds were identified to support three Research Fellowships for psychiatric registrars. The positions are for 2 years, at half-time research and half-time clinical training. Henderson et al. (2015) called for a ‘coalition of the willing’ between health providers (e.g. governments) and academic settings (e.g. universities, Medical Research Institutes) to fund training in academic psychiatry. Queensland researchers have responded to these same needs. Similar training positions have also been funded by the New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry. This year, two basic trainees under the 2012 Competency Based Programme were awarded Research Fellowships. Even though there is much goodwill among the participating academic and health partners, these fellows will have to juggle roles and responsibilities in not only research but also in services provision and training. Moreover, although it was not a focus of the recent editorials, the personal cost of such endeavours, in particular striking the right work–life balance, can also be challenging. Despite these challenges, we are optimistic that the new Queensland Research Fellowships will provide the
trainees with an environment where they can learn research and clinical skills at the same time. We believe that it takes a mix of curiosity, passion and tenacity to build a research scientist, and these fellowships will kindle these characteristics in trainees (McGrath, 2014). There is a vast amount of untapped clinical wisdom in our profession that awaits scientific scrutiny. Apart from harnessing clinical skills, we need to train psychiatrists to actively engage with the broad discipline of neuroscience and genetics. The pace of discovery in neuroscience is remarkable, and now, more than ever, psychiatrists need to engage in multidisciplinary research with basic scientists. Put bluntly, if we want to fix broken brains, we first need to understand how healthy brains are built and how they work (Fornito et al., 2015). We need clinical researchers who can generate novel treatments and design better ways to deliver services. How can we best incubate the next John Cade? We hope that these initiatives from the Queensland Mental Health Research Alliance will encourage other centres in Australia and New Zealand to trial similar experiments. Acknowledgements We thank our research and clinical partners in supporting the creation of the Queensland
Mental Health Research Alliance and embedded clinical research fellowships, namely, Frank Gannon, Perry Bartlett, Brett Emmerson, Sharon Kelly, Terry Stedman and David Crompton.
Declaration of interest The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
Funding JM is supported by a NHMRC John Cade Fellowship (APP1062846). See Editorial by Henderson et al., 2015, 49(1): 9–12; see also Editorial by Lewis and Jorm, 2015(2): 99–101.
References Fornito A, Zelesky A and Breakspear M (2015) The connectomics of brain disorders. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 16: 1–14. Henderson S, Porter RJ, Basset D, et al. (2015) Why academic psychiatry is endangered. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 49: 9–12. Kisely S (2015) Can the next generation of clinician-scientists please step forward? Australasian Psychiatry 23: 5–6. Lewis AJ and Jorm AF (2015) Academic psychiatry – Extinction or adaptation to a changing world: A view from clinical psychology. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 49: 99–101. McGrath JJ (2014) The John Cade Fellowship: Modifiable risk factors for serious mental illness. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 48: 13–16.
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 49(5)
Copyright of Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
