Department of Psychological Medicine

 

Faculty of Medicine

University of Colombo

Sri Lanka

 

 

25,  Kynsey Road, Colombo 8

Telephone : +94 11 2691688

   E mail : psych_med@yahoo.com

 

 

                          

                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the mid sixties Prof. Stanley Dissanayake the Dean at the time took the initiative to give effect to the long standing proposal to establish an academic department of Psychiatry. Dr.C. P. Wijesinghe was appointed initially as a Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry attached to the Department of Medicine in 1969 and in 1970 to the Chair of the newly established Department of Psychiatry.  Damani Attanayake with the support staff established the Faculty office in the present premises. D. Dedigama charge nurse played a key role in the establishment of the clinical unit at the General Hospital premises in 1970 in the building earlier used by the Veterinary Science Department.

 

The first Professor of Psychiatry was  Prof. Channa Wijesinghe and after his resignation in 1975, Prof. S.A.W. Dissanayake was appointed to the Chair in 1976. An academic post for child psychiatry was created in 1978. Dr. Nalaka Mendis who joined the university in 1974 was appointed as the Head in 1982 and later to the Chair in 1989. Drs. Diyanath Samarasinghe and Hemamali Perera joined the department in mid seventies and mid eighties. The present academic and the support staff joined the department later. In 1983 with the assistance of Professors D. Attygalle and Prof. T. Viswanathan additional space was found for the academic staff in the new building.

 

Over the years in response to emerging needs and recommendations of various expert committees the scope of the Department was widened in order to have a greater impact on improving mental health care in Sri Lanka. Behavioural Sciences, Biomedical Ethics, Child and Community Psychiatry programmes were strengthened. This necessitated the change of the name to “Department of Psychological Medicine” in 1994 and an increase of the academic cadre positions to carry out increasing training, clinical, research and development activities.

 

The Department has pioneered the teaching of Psychiatry for undergraduates in Sri Lanka. The undergraduate Psychiatry programme has expanded from two weeks of clinical attachment in 1969 to one month of attachment which included two questions in the medicine paper in 1981. In 1995 with the curriculum revisions  a separate Mental Health Module and two months of clinical attachment was introduced. In 1995 the Department became the first among medical schools in Sri Lanka to introduce the evaluation of  Psychiatry as a separate subject in the final year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright ©  2010

Advisor - Dr. Varuni de Silva & Designed by Dr. Thilini Wickramasuriya