26-S102 Good Intentions, Mixed Outcomes: A look at Psychiatry’s Hits and Misses from a Historical and Cultural Perspective – Suniti Pande

This course looks at common psychiatric disorders and how they are diagnosed and treated through the lens of how ideas developed over the last 150-200 years. It looks at how paradigm shifts occurred with new information and testing of theories and how cultural changes in the twentieth century have changed approaches to treatment of mental disorders. This course will also be looking at Transcultural Psychiatry and how it helps to clarify diagnoses in some conditions and influences approaches to treatments. The basis of my talks is through reading published literature, clinical knowledge and personal experience working in different countries and settings over the last forty years. The content aims to be educational, informative and thought provoking. Clinical anecdotes will be used to illustrate my points.

Instructor: Suniti Pande

Dr. Pande qualified as a doctor with an MBBS degree from Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, India, in 1979. She worked as a general practitioner for a few years in India and in the United Arab Emirates until 1988. Dr. Pande trained in psychiatry in England and has practiced as a psychiatrist in Canada since 1995. Dr. Pande’s formative years in mental health were treating patients in psychiatric hospital settings in UK and in Canada and then in community and general hospital settings. She continues to have a small practice in Vancouver. Dr. Pande enjoys teaching students and colleagues and looks forward to this opportunity to speak to an audience at ELLA who are most likely not in the medical field and who enjoy learning. Dr. Pande lives part-time in Vancouver and Edmonton where her daughter and grandchildren live.