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Psychiatric Hospital of Thessaloniki

Hospital address: Lagada 196, Stavroupoli, 54629, Thessaloniki ,Greece

Hospital website: http://gpapanikolaou.gr/

The Psychiatric Hospital of Thessaloniki (PHT) was founded in 1917. The Forensic Department was established in 1988 in the grounds of the PHT, in order to hospitalize perpetrators of crimes found not guilty due to mental illness. No other such department exists in Greece. It serves the population of Northern Greece and admits patients mainly released from prison, since they are treated from the criminal system as patients and not as common criminals. Our services are therefore for people may pose a risk to others and who may have been involved in the criminal justice system. The Forensic Department provides a range of NHS mental health services to those patients and their families.

Currently 55 patients are hospitalized in our department, mostly men and mostly manslayers. There aren’t any locked doors and the patients are granted leaves of absence after careful evaluation and family support. Our medical staff consists of 2 psychiatrists, 1 social worker part time, 1 psychologist part time, 1 occupational therapist part time and recently 1 physiotherapist also part time. Experienced nurses assist our work and are present 24/7. Both individual and group therapies are applied in order to provide a holistic approach to the mental issues of this special group of patients maximizing the benefits.

As regards to our educational program, the issues discussed concern the mental health law (involuntary treatment, forensic treatment), the evaluation of legal capacity or incapacity, the evaluation of dangerousness, the study of our clinical sample and bibliographic data etc. Case reports are also part of our educational program. The interns participate in our every other week meeting discussing the progress and the problems of our patients. They have the chance to examine and cure patients daily under the supervision of the consultants. They can also attend the Outpatient Clinic where we monitor and treat 20 such patients now living in the community. 3 months of training in our department are thought to be sufficient for the holistic education and training of the psychiatric interns in Greece.

Length of the programme:

2 weeks

Periods available:

February to July and August to January

Language requirements:

English: Advanced

Language: The candidate must speak English sufficiently. All communication in the Dept is made in Greek, but most staff speak good English and will be happy to translate for the candidate.

Other requirements:

VISA needed:

Not needed for most European countries, please check individually.

Travel and health insurance needed:

Highly recommended

Accommodation:

No help with accommodation is provided, see useful websites below.

Useful websites:

https://www.ihacom.gr/
https://www.airbnb.gr/
https://www.trivago.gr/

Local coordinator:

Agoroula Georgiadi
agoroulageorgiadi@gmail.com