Introduction
The Department of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne was established in the 1960s.
The Department has major units at Melbourne Health, St. Vincent 's Health and Austin Health. The Head of the Department of Psychiatry is the Cato Professor of Psychiatry, who is located in and also heads the unit at Melbourne Health, located at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. In addition, there are a number of research centres, offices and units and many psychiatric units within Victoria that are affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry in which academic appointees of the Department are located.
In 2007 the research structures will be: ORYGEN Research Centre; Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre (MNC); Australian Posttraumatic Mental Health Centre; Psychosocial Research Centre; Northern Psychiatry Research Unit. The psychiatric units include those at the Sunshine, Werribee and Mercy and Northern hospitals; Broadmeadows Health Service; and two private hospitals, the Melbourne Clinic (Healthscope) and the Albert Road Clinic (Ramsay). The Department of Psychiatry is involved extensively in direct clinical delivery, development of service delivery, medical student and psychiatric trainee education and psychiatric research.
The Department plays a key role in the current medical curriculum, having responsibility for the subject Health Practice in semester 5 and providing six, six-weekly rotations in psychiatry for medical students in semesters 10 and 11. The Department also offers many opportunities for students in their Advanced Medical Science (AMS) year in semesters 6 and 7.
The research interests of the Department include neuropsychiatry, neuroimaging, neuropsychology, psychosocial research, economic evaluation, psycho-neuroendocrinology, psycho-pharmacology, ethics, psychiatric epidemiology, and service delivery, and in early psychosis schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, childhood psychiatric disorders, youth mental health, women's mental health, dementia and psychiatry of old age.
In 2006 the Department had 48 teaching and research staff, 84 research only staff and 31 administrative staff. The total income for the Department in 2006 was $14.4M of which $13M was income derived from funding sources other than the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). In 2005, members of the Department published 7 chapters in research books and 115 peer reviewed journal articles.
It is critically involved with a number of partners detailed on the Organization Chart.