AFPA President Message by Dr G. Prasad Rao
My dear esteemed colleagues! It is a great honour to write this address as your president. First, let me express thank you all for supporting me for the leadership of Asian Federation of Psychiatric Associations (AFPA ) for electing me as your president. Your faith in my leadership give me energy to work. Collectively all the leadership areas AFPA will improve mental health across our Asia - Pacific region with commitment to world psychiatry.
My ambitions and visions for AFPA, 2022-2024
I am looking forward for continuous engagement of AFPA, federation leadership across the countries and to primarily to particularly develop psychiatric knowledge, skills imparting, to help harmonise across countries of sharing the best psychiatric practices to impart knowledge sharing through our website and be in regular touch by interactive webinar learnings.
Among the counties to maintain solidarity and exchange of psychiatric education first in medical under graduate education and post graduate education, residency programme. I request all associations to write to me the faculty who wish to participate in this programme through e-learning to mentor young psychiatrists.
AFPA has now emerged as an important regional association and its affiliation of World Psychiatric Association is going to be important aspect of its future role in international psychiatry. Active partnership of Asian member societies in the AFPA mission and phisolophy.
Academic exchange
I request all leaders of AFPA to actively make our region a bed of academic activities to give opportunity for scientific exchange. Please be sharing your activities with Winston W. Shen for knowledge sharing in the Bulletin of the AFPA.
Active partnership of all our AFPA member societies in the AFPA functioning is continuosly supporting AFPA's mission and philosophy. We are witnessing a global change in understanding of mental health issues, we are still far behind in many aspects of provision of an ideal metal health care for our patients. We do live in the 21st century but when it comes to stigma and discrimination for our patients and equality for our profession, we are still struggling a lot and stay far behind the acceptable standards of modern civilisation. I hope with the support of our AFPA member societies and with the continuous guidance from our leaders in psychiatry, AFPA will also be able to highlight all other challenges and problems in our speciality. I once again thank all of you for your support to AFPA and look forward for receiving your feedback and further input to our future work. (I declare no conflicts of interest in writing these messages.)
G. Prasad Rao
Schizophrenia and Psychopharmacology Division,
Asha Hospital, Hyderabad, India
Corresponding author. 298, Road No. 14,
Banjara Hills, Hyderabad - 500034, Hyderbad, India
G. Prasad Rao
APPA president, 2022-2024.
Dr Afzal Javed
President World Psychiatric Association (WPA)
Past President Asian Federation of Psychiatric Association (AFPA)
I am pleased to send this message of greetings to AFPA and share my appreciation for the successful activities of AFPA during the last years. AFPA, being an important component of WPA, has actively promoted the cause of psychiatry and highlighted its importance across the Asian countries.
Psychiatry is currently facing several challenges, and although our profession may be seen as being under threat, there are many opportunities that can help us consolidate psychiatry as an inspiring branch of medicine. AFPA, being the representative organization for psychiatrists from Asian countries thus has a major responsibility for leading the profession. This leadership is seen through full participation from our membership and engagement of our professional colleagues. We are grateful to AFPA office bearers and the Board for their continuous support and guidance for improving mental health services in Asian countries.
Due to Covid Pandemic, AFPA has to restrict its activities mostly virtual. But similarly, the 2022 AFPA congress held in Hyderabad, India was a real success with a number of countries represented in the congress. Thanks to Prof Prasad Rao, President AFPA and his team for organising this memorable congress.
AFPA’s network continues with completing REAP studies and Prof Shinfuku and his team deserves special thanks for their hard work. Prof Winston Shen’s work for AFPA Bulletin is extremely important and helping our membership to get updated account of our activities.
AFPA has been very helpful to World Psychiatric Association and other international organisations with collaboration and joint working. AFPA was visible having special sessions in WPA congresses and meetings where international leaders were joining hands to promoting mental health across the globe.
It is also gratifying to note that the AFPA membership is adding a lot of value to its work around Asian countries. AFPA’s main work include looking at emerging needs and priorities from a global perspective. Looking at the global situation, only a minority of people with mental disorder receive any treatment. There is an outstanding need to improve access to high quality mental health care in our countries and to support psychiatrists and other mental health professionals in their important roles as policy makers, direct service providers, trainers and supporters of health care workers in primary and community health care systems. AFPA therefore continues working:
It is hoped that the 2023 will generate interest among all our membership to develop guidelines and directions for future work and seek higher mental health services from relevant sources. AFPA is optimistic that it will receive support, active input, and advice from our membership in setting these priorities and making a real difference in mental health.
Dr Afzal Javed
AFPA President Message by Prof Malcolm Hopwood
It is a great privilege to be writing this for The Bulletin of the AFPA as I assume the role and responsibilities of the president of the Asian Federation of Psychiatric Associations (AFPA). I am honoured to have the opportunity to work with you all for the next two years.
As my first step, I would like to express my deep appreciation to our immediate past president Afzal Javed (Pakistan) for his leadership and efforts to raise the profile of the AFPA and its initiatives and activities. I would also like to thank the executive committee (2017 - 2019), council members and honourary fellows for their guidance.
I am looking forward to continuing an active engagement with member societies to progress AFPA’s objectives, in particular to share psychiatric knowledge, skills and practices among Asia and Pacific countries to improve care of the mentally ill in the AFPA region. Among the issues we would particularly like to focus on, and potentially develop joint positons around, are the recruitment and retention of an appropriate workforce to meet the population’s mental health needs, the promotion of mental health issues to Asian communities and the role and scope of mental health legislation.
In this issue of the Bulletin, you will find a summary of the 7th World Congress of Asian Psychiatry (WCAP) held in Sydney 22 - 24 February, 2019. The WCAP was a great success, attended by more than 350 participants from more than 30 countries. I would like to thank the hosts, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists for their organisation and a most enjoyable congress.
During the 7th WCAP in Sydney, the AFPA executive committee for 2019?2021 were appointed as follows:
I look forward to working with this committee to further the aims of objectives of AFPA over the next two years. (The author declares no conflicts of interest in writing this address.)
Malcolm J. Hopwood
Professorial Psychiatry Unit, Albert Road Clinic
Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Australia
Corresponding author. 31-33 Albert Road, Melbourne VIC 3004, Australia
名称
一般社団法人 アジア精神医学会
主たる事務所
東京都中央区日本橋小伝馬町10-8
設立年月日(法人)
平成28年12月12日
会社法人等番号
0100-05-026127