Professor Susanna Every-Palmer, Head of Department of Psychological Medicine

MBChB (Akld), MSc in Evidence-based Health Care (with Distinction, Oxon) FRANZCP, Adv Cert Forensic Psychiatry (RANZCP), PhD (Otago)

• Contact details
• Positions
• Memberships
• Research summary
• Research interests
• Publications

Susanna is an academic psychiatrist who is passionate about using multidisciplinary research collaborations to inform the highest quality evidence-based care for people with mental illness.

Alongside her role in the university, Susanna is concurrently employed at the Central Regional and Forensic Services. She has worked in a number of different areas across the mental health sector, including as Clinical Director and Director of Area Mental Health Services (DAMHS) of the Forensic and Rehabilitation Services covering courts, prisons and inpatient and community forensics across New Zealand’s lower north island and as New Zealand’s Acting Director of Mental Health at the Ministry of Health.

Susanna is the Chair of the New Zealand Committee of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists.

Susanna obtained RANZCP Fellowship in 2008 and her Advanced Certificate in Forensic Psychiatry in 2010. She has a Masters in Evidence Based Medicine from Oxford University and her PhD focussed on mitigating harms in the treatment of serious mental illness.

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Contact details

Email susanna.every-palmer@otago.ac.nz

Positions

• Head of Department, Department of Psychological Medicine
• Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, MHAIDs, 3DHB
• Chair of the New Zealand Committee of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists – Tu Te Akaaka Roa
• Board Director for the Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists
• Board Member of the Council of Medical Colleges
• Associate Editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry

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Research summary

• Mental health service development and co-design
• Reducing health inequities in mental health care
• Multidisciplinary management of serious mental illness

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Research interests

Susanna’s academic and clinical interests include

• The effects of COVID-19 on population mental health
• Mental health service development and co-design
• Reducing health inequities in mental health care
• Multidisciplinary management of serious mental illness
• Antipsychotic treatment and its side effects, with a particular focus on clozapine
• Forensic psychiatry: legal frameworks, prisons, and forensic rehabilitation

Susanna is interested in supervising postgraduate students in any of the research areas listed above or related areas. Please contact her directly