Interview: Professor Dinesh Bhugra - President, British Medical Association.

Abstract

Somewhere in India a man is having a Skype consultation with a psychiatrist located in a hospital 500 km away. With him in the van is a nurse to help with the consultation and a pharmacist to dispense the medication. In New Zealand’s North Island a woman with depression is logging on to a website for the first of 10 CBT sessions, after completing a screening questionnaire with her GP. E-mental health care was one of many critical topics that I discussed with Professor Dinesh Bhugra, in a conversation that ranged across medical training, practice, and professionalism, and across continents. Dinesh Bhugra is President of the British Medical Association (BMA), and brings to his position a global experience of psychiatry and mental health. As well as being Professor of Mental Health and Cultural Diversity at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, he has done all the big jobs, including the presidency of his royal college and of the World Psychiatric Association; the first UK-based doctor to be elected to the post. He also has …