Dr. Beezhold gave an excellent speech at this year’s EFPT, emphasizing the importance of psychiatry as a specialisation. I struggled afterwards, because we were told that as a first step towards positively psychiatry we should avoid the word “stigma”, which is itself an overused negative label for our patients. I agree with him, but I appreciated this too late and had already submitted my presentation entitled “Stigma hurts – let’s lose it”. I believe now, that within the scientific sphere the word is still acceptable, especially as I won the main prize. I was given this opportunity to share original data from the Mindset project, for the first time ever abroad. Stigma attached to mental illness leads to reluctance to offer adequate treatment to patients. As a research team we demonstrated this in a population of undergraduate nursing students by analysing their stigmatising attitudes towards psychiatric patients and found that they were unwilling to work with such patients. A cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted in the Czech Republic. We created three original interventions to reduce the stigma and discrimination: an information flyer, an evidence based seminar and short videos (one of which I screened at the end of my presentation – see below) and compared their effectiveness. This project positively influenced participating students and brought promising evidence of destigmatisation. We also successfully increased the attractiveness of psychiatry.
I want to thank the jury members Alan Apter, Manuel Morrens, Jurgen De Fruyt, EFPT organisers, led by Livia De Picker and the audience for an inspirational moment in my medical career. I am writing this testimonial from the sunny island of Hvar, reading a book “The House of God” written by Samuel Sham, where the psychiatrist says: “..the worst clinicians are those running for prestigious victories and higher impact factors.” I hope he is wrong, because I mainly focus on clinical work with my patients. I invite you to apply next year too. I definitely hope to repeat my success. The presentations this year were very strong, with a wide variation in topics including: PTSD in Kosovo, research in LAI medication and food addiction. Last, but not at least, the world is in fear again, because of all the terrorism and conflicts in recent days. The next EFPT forum wil be held in Istanbul, so I just hope that we all be able to meet there in calm environment and have a great time like this year.
Pavel Trancik, MD
Thanks to Oxford University Press, Best Oral Presentation Winner Pavel Trancik was awarded a copy of
Fiorillo et al. “Psychiatry in Practice: Education, Experience and Expertise” and Nezu & Nezu “The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies”
This video was created by Pavel Trancik, Mindset project, National Institute of Mental Health, Czech Republic