It has been thirteen years since I walked in the corridors of the psychiatry ward as a junior resident. Back then, psychiatry training happened while walking back and forth from the psychiatry ward to the OPD. There were no specified competencies at that point in time. You learned psychiatry, as Albert Bandura once postulated in […]
Tag: MINDS Newsletter
Looking Inwards to Close the Mental Health Treatment Gap – By Dr. Priyash Jain
At any given time, one in ten adults in India experiences one or more mental health conditions. Despite this significant burden, the self-reported treatment gap as per the National Mental Health Survey 2016 remains alarmingly high at 84.5%. The treatment gap is highest for substance use disorders (91%, excluding tobacco use disorder) and lowest for […]
Down The Memory Lane by Dr Rayees Ahmad Wani
Volume 13 Issues 11 November, 2023 The Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) started by NMC from year 2019 has made undergraduate students more interested in the field of psychiatry. CBME is an approach to medical education that focuses on defining specific competencies (knowledge, skills, attitudes) that medical students must demonstrate before they can progress through their […]
The Rise of the Vapes
Volume 13 Issues 11 November, 2023 Fast forward to the early 2000s, the first modern e-cigarette devices began to emerge, and by the 2010s, various brands had flooded the market. Vaping, defined as using a handheld electronic device to inhale a mist (or “vapor”) into the lungs, became increasingly popular. The landmark 1964 Surgeon General’s […]
Psychological support to the rape victim: Undiscerning area
Volume 13 Issues 10 October, 2023 Sexual violence is a severe problem in society that often goes unreported and with a complex relationship to mental health problems. As per WHO, “rape is defined as the physically forced or otherwise coerced penetration of the vulva or anus with a penis, other body part or object.” The […]
Against our will
Volume 13 Issues 10 October, 2023 During my earlier days at NIMHANS, I was shocked by an incident that happened not very far away from the campus. One evening when a woman was walking along the busy Double Road, she was forcefully taken away and raped. She was a married working woman who was walking […]
Sexual abuse and violence
Volume 13 Issues 10 October, 2023 Sexual abuse and violence —an epidemic, often whispered about in the shadows, masked by society’s silence— has plagued humanity since the beginnings of time. It’s all around us, this atrocity : homes, schools, workplaces, and even in public. It is a manifestation of systemically placed, twisted power dynamics in […]
What you sow, so shall you reap: from micro to macro economy of medical education.
Volume 13 Issues 9 September, 2023 Opening a medical college in India costs 700 crore to 1000 crore, depending on the city and the area. While government colleges offer subsidised undergraduate medical education at around Rs 5 lakh for MBBS, the lowest fee for the complete course in any private college is over Rs 70 […]
DISSOCIATION, FACTITIOUSNESS AND MALINGERING – A CONTINUUM
Volume 13 Issues 8 August, 2023 ‘Nothing, it may be said, resembles malingering more than hysteria; nothing hysteria more than malingering. In both alike we are confronted with the same discrepancy—between fact and statement, between objective sign and subjective symptom.’ – A. Bassett Jones & L. J. Llewellyn, Malingering, or, The Simulation of Disease, 1918.Dissociative […]
Happy birthday
Volume 13 Issues 8 August, 2023 “Happy birthday”, I said. “Thank you “, he responded. “How many candles are going to be on your cake today? “I asked. 17, with a sparkle in his eyes and a smile, he replied. He was my neighbour’s son. He had just completed his 12th with excellent grades, and […]