It was more than a quarter of century that the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) last held a Congress outside Australia or New Zealand. This year the Congress was held in Hong Kong from 8 to 12 May to support the growing relationships and collaborations within the region. I was indeed delighted and honored to represent Singapore Psychiatric Association (SPA) for the Congress. The theme of the Congress is ‘Regional challenges worldwide influence’ and there were seven high calibre international keynote speakers along with many invited speakers from around the world who presented a diverse range of psychiatric topics.

I particularly enjoyed the keynote speech by Prof Naomi Fineberg of the Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust. The lecture was on the relationship between compulsivity and impulsivity in Obsessive Compulsive Related Disorders (OCRDs), the evidence based treatment currently available and highlighted some of the randomized controlled trials showing efficacy against placebo in Resistant OCD.

As my current interest is on Peer Specialist programme and movement, I also attended the symposium on ‘Recovery and the Psychiatrist: The Way Forward’. Central to all descriptions of recovery are: Hope, Self-determination, Self-management, Empowerment and Advocacy. Psychiatrists have a key role to play in applying the principles of recovery and they need to be aware of the key elements of concept of recovery, review their approach in clinical practice to ensure they are knowledgeable and competent and that their practice is recovery-oriented.

Another related symposium was ‘Psychosocial Interventions (PSIs) for People with Severe Mental Illness (SMI): perspectives on current practice realities and implications for training and implementation’. Despite PSIs having robust evidence and are recommended in clinical practice guidelines for SMI, these interventions are yet to be widely available in routine care. It is recommended that a multi-level systems approach is required to implement PSIs – taking into account characteristics of the patients, staff factors and the organizational culture variables of leadership and planning.

One of the closing lectures was on ‘Psychiatric leadership and courage in volatile times’. Clinical leadership is akin to a conductor of an orchestral concert. The primary duties of the conductor are to set the tempo and to ensure correct entries by various members of the ensemble. Invariably the applause goes to the singer and the conductor does not try to get the attention by ‘outsmarting’ the team or ‘claiming’ the credits. The other take-home message is: ‘Volatility hurts at times, but it can also make us stronger’.

I must say the Congress was well organized with its eclectic scientific programmes. I must also say I have benefited from the networking sessions which allow SPA to continue its friendship with the other regional and international associations and societies.

Photo with Dr Kym Jenkins – President Elect RANZCP

Photo with current President, RANZCP Prof Malcolm Hopwood

The Singapore Psychiatric Association kindly supported my nomination to attend the World Psychiatric Association International Congress of Psychiatry (WPAIC) 2015 held in Taipei, Taiwan, from 18 – 22 November 2015. I was honored and privileged to have been awarded the Young Psychiatrist Award (YPA) to attend this conference.

The theme of the conference this year was “Bridging Asia to the World – A New Era for Psychiatric Treatment”. This theme is in line with the WPA mission of raising standards of patient care around the globe, of which a key aspect involves learning from each other. This conference brought together numerous international and regional renowned mental health experts who shared new interventions and strategies on providing excellent mental health care for our patients and their families, as well as discussed the interaction between Asia and the world in the field of mental health. In addition, a range of interesting topics pertinent to the future of psychiatry were discussed. These enlightening topics ranged from challenges to psychiatry and its public health implications, to state-of-the-art novel treatment for various conditions.

As an YPA awardee, I had the opportunity to interact with young psychiatrists from other Asian countries. These interactions enabled me to gain more perspective on how psychiatry is practiced in some of our neighboring countries and made me reflect upon how we can improve on patient care locally.

We also had the chance to meet distinguished forerunners in the field of psychiatry during the YPA sessions, including Professor Norman Sartorius, Professor Dinesh Bhugra and Professor Julio Licinio. Topics surrounding the past and future of psychiatry, developing leadership skills and strategies for getting published in leading medical research journals were discussed in depth.

This was truly an eye-opening and enlightening experience. I have forged valuable friendships with other young psychiatrists which I hope would translate into research collaborations in the future. I thank the SPA for granting me this valuable opportunity to participate in the conference.

Dr Ong Say How

I had the privilege to attend the APA’s 168^th Annual Meeting in the capacity as Vice-President of SPA from 16^th to 20^th May 2015.  This year’s theme was “Psychiatry: Integrating Body and Mind, Heart and Soul”. The theme captures the spirit of psychiatry in terms of its effort in interconnecting mental health with physical health, and bringing the relationship between psychiatry and general medicine closer together.

The meeting brought together numerous world-renowned mental health practitioners and covered a wide diversity of topics under psychiatry and psychology. For me, I felt compelled to attend lectures and workshops in military psychiatry, addictions and cultural formulations, which I would otherwise not have the opportunity to in my other meeting attendances given my inclination toward child psychiatric topics.

As I proceeded to collect my name tag at the exhibit hall, I was pleasantly surprised to catch the APA TV video recordings featuring our fellow senior colleagues from IMH and KKH. Speaking on research, service and educational developments in Singapore, they certainly helped put Singapore onto the world psychiatry map.

Dr Paul Summergrad, out-going APA President (see inset 1), did a splendid job in taking the status of APA to a higher level. In his opening speech, he said that psychiatry is in the midst of a profound transformation with respect to the understanding of neuroscience, genetics and epigenetics. Noting that mental illness is not just an American issue, he called upon global solutions to better understand the cost and mortality burden of psychiatric illness and its interplay with general medical care and costs. Besides interviewing several eminent speakers throughout the meeting, he also conferred distinguished fellow awards to APA members at the convocation ceremony and launched the new logo of APA during the opening session.  The new logo (see inset 2), comprising the Rod of Asclepius superimposed on two hemispheres of the human brain, signifies the coming of a new APA with new thinking and ideas. It also reflects the leadership of the psychiatrist as a physician of the mind, brain and body.

President-elect,Dr Renee L. Binder, in her address to the APA attendees stressed on the theme “Claiming Our Future” for her year as APA president. She reiterated that doctors have the responsibility to ensure psychiatrists of the future continue to deliver high-quality care to patients and have professionallysatisfying lives. Among the several statements she posed to the attendees included an empowering one: “We have fought hard and accomplished our pursuit of parity legislation, but now we must make fair and equal insurance coverage of mental health a reality……There is no health care without mental health care.”

Alcohol and substance addiction received prominent attention and extensive coverage during the meeting. Some papers presented included one on adolescent alcohol use which found an 8-year trajectory of increasing frontal and temporal damage and loss of myelination in young adults who drink alcohol heavily. Another focused on identification of key neuropathological elements that might inform the development of novel approaches to prevention and treatment. Renowned addictions researcherDr Nora Volkow, director of the National institute on Drug Abuse, presented her William C. Menninger Memorial Convocation Lecture. She shared her personal life story of her grandfather suffering from alcoholism and how he eventually passed away when she was only a young child. She highlighted the importance of understanding pathophysiological abnormalities in the brain that may make someone more prone to addictive behaviors and how certain neurocircuitries of addiction can overlap those of other psychiatric conditions such as depression.

Other notable topics during the APA meeting included one interesting workshopwhich reviewed research linking food and mood – that diet low in processed, highly refined foods are correlated with lower rates of bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety. It also promoted takingour favorite oystersand other foods rich in Omega Fatty Acids. Thankfully, fresh oysters were quite readily available in Toronto and Boston, where I was heading to next.

Being new to APA, I was impressed with the organization and smooth operation of this large meeting. I supposed that with 168 years behind APA, such large-scale meetings with several thousand attendees are no longer as big a challenge. For Singapore psychiatrists who have yet attended an APA in their professional lives, I would highly recommend it. The 169^th APA Annual meeting will be held in Atlanta in 2016.

Outgoing President of APA, Dr Paul Summergrad

New logo of APA