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Director's Message
It is a great privilege and honour for me to lead the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) as Director.
NIMHANS is world-renowned as a centre for mental health, neurosciences and allied fields. The vision of NIMHANS is to be a world leader in these areas and to evolve state-of-the-art approaches to patient care through translational research. The contributions of NIMHANS in providing the highest quality of clinical services, standards of excellence in training and active engagement in research in these specialised fields are widely known. NIMHANS has been committed to training in basic sciences related to the brain and mind, behaviour in health and ill-health, and translation of evidence from the bench to the bedside, as well as in the community. The concurrent emphasis on both biomedicine, as well as psychosocial aspects, has driven research ranging from neuroplasticity, imaging and genomics to the psychological, spiritual and anthropological aspects of mental well-being and illness.
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Dr. Pratima Murthy brings about 30 years of extensive experience and exceptional accomplishments in the field of mental health. Dr. Pratima received her MBBS degree from Bangalore Medical College in 1985. She obtained DPM and MD (Psychological Medicine) from NIMHANS in 1987 and 1989 respectively. She joined as a faculty at her alma mater in 1993, and has worked in various academic capacities since then. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP)-Glasgow.
A well-recognized leader in addiction psychiatry, she has been instrumental in the successful development of state-of-the-art Centre for Addiction Medicine at NIMHANS. She has served as a consultant to prominent international agencies such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). She has also served as a resource person for various flagship training programmes in substance abuse prevention and tobacco cessation in the country, and across the globe.
Dr Pratima is also recognised for her contribution in improving care for persons with mental illness through her work with the National Human Rights Commission on quality assurance in mental health care both in institutions and in the community.
In recognition of her research and academic excellence, Dr. Pratima has received numerous awards and honours including the prestigious Dr. Raja Ramanna State Award by the Government of Karnataka and Lifetime Achievement Award from Rotary. She was honoured with the WHO Regional Director’s Special Recognition Award on ‘World No Tobacco Day 2021’ for her remarkable service in tobacco control. A prolific author and she has more than 300 research publications in various international indexed journals and scientific books to her credit.
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