Department of Psychological Medicine

Te Tari Whakaora Hinengaro Tangata

Nau mai, haere mai

Staff in the Department of Psychological Medicine are very enthusiastic about research, teaching and clinical practice.

The core academic staff includes psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, a family therapist, and a small team of service user academics. In addition, senior clinicians from our two local DHBs (Hutt Valley and Capital and Coast) as well as Midcentral DHB and the Hawkes Bay DHB are also engaged as Senior Clinical Lecturers.

Our research programmes are configured around several themes relevant to mental health practice in the New Zealand setting:

Physical health of people with mental illness, including obesity and sleep
Mental health service delivery and evaluation, including in primary care and secondary care
The interface between psychological and physical health
Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology
Suicide
Service user-led and co-produced research and teaching
Personality and its role in mental illness
Education in the clinical professions
Addictions
Mental health law
Stigma and discrimination

We take pride in our undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes. Undergraduate medical students receive mental health teaching in all three clinical years they spend at the University of Otago, Wellington. We provide a range of postgraduate courses, including the seminar series for doctors training in psychiatry to become fellows of RANZCP (registrars).