Armed Forces Medical College

The Department of Psychiatry contributes to the field of Mental Health by working towards the highest standards of clinical care, training, research, and creative endeavours. It aims to cultivate competence and dedication in every student and faculty member for life-long learning to achieve their highest potential and to make the department a true centre of excellence.

The Department of Psychiatry was established in 1970. The first professor Maj S B Chatterjee laid the foundation of this department. The Department, in the initial years occupied offices in small barracks behind the Anatomy Department. In April 1998, the department moved to the Golden Jubilee Block.

Brig Jyoti Prakash is currently the head of department. An undergraduate and postgraduate alumnus of AFMC, he has done post doctoral training in Child Psychiatry from NIMHANS, WHO & Bloomberg fellowship from Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, ACME fellowship from GSMC Mumbai, Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resource Management & Computer Applications and M.Phil from National Defence College (Madras University).He is a certified ACLS trainer (AHA), NABH Assessor and is trained in ATLS. He holds teaching experience of 21 years, is examiner for 5 university, member of task force in psychiatry for MUHS and part of National Advisory Panel in psychiatry for NBEMS.He has 130+ publications, 2 books & 4 chapters in books to his credit and been Editor-in-Chief of National Psychiatry Journal and president of Indian Psychiatry Society (Pune branch). He has won multiple national and international awards, few of them are Kekobad Award, Ravi Pandey Memorial Award, JECT Investigator of the year award (APA), Kripal Singh Award, Prof Alka Marella Award, Aruna Madan Award, Gayatri Gopal Award etc. His primary interest lies in psychiatry teaching, Child & Adolescent psychiatry, Socio-dramas, Clinical research and Creative writing.

• MBBS.
• MD Psychiatry.
• MD (On rotation).
• Medicine & Neurology.
• Pediatrics & Early Intervention Centre.
• Physiology & Sleep Lab.
• NIMHANS, Bangalore (Community Psychiatry).
• Deaddiction Centre (MIMH, Pune).
• Geriatric Medicine.
• B.Sc. Nursing.
• Post Basic B.Sc. Nursing (2nd year subject).
• M.Sc. Psychiatric Nursing.
• M.Sc. Nursing (On rotation).
• Orthopedics and rehabilitation.
• Intensive care.

The Post Graduate residency program is elaborate, and training is imparted in various sub- specialties including Adult Psychiatry, Child Psychiatry, Geriatric Psychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry, Military Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Clinical Psychology.

Facilities which are available in the Department include - Inpatient Psychiatric service, Outpatient treatment, Child Guidance Clinic, Memory Clinic, Deaddiction Clinic etc. The Psychometry lab of this department caters to clinical and diagnostic evaluation of patients as well as personality profiling and behavior modification of entrant medical cadets. The Department has been in the forefront of generating guidelines, developing psychological tests & software and publishing books in keeping with requirements of Military Psychiatry, Psychiatric education and research. Newer Neuromodulatory techniques like Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation are also available.

Regular outreach activities, school visits and community programs are carried out in which the Undergraduates and Postgraduates actively participate. Participation in rural mental health in collaboration with Community medicine Department is also included for purpose of training, treatment, empowerment, and advocacy. The Department is actively involved in conducting annual workshops in various topics of Psychological and Psychiatric relevance which are highly attended by the faculty and postgraduate students from west zone medical colleges.

The Department has spearheaded mental illness awareness at national level during COVID-19. Apart from producing many mental health advisories for Healthcare Workers, elderly, frontline workers, and military personnel, it has brought out ‘9 steps of positive well-being’ for the Indian population at large in collaboration with the office of Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India. The Department is currently involved in developing a Digital Positive Mental Health platform in collaboration with office of Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India, NIMHANS and CDAC Bengaluru.

Indian Teachers of Psychiatry Award for the Best Department.

The ‘Indian Teachers of Psychiatry Award for the Best Department contributing towards Post-graduation Psychiatry Education, 2022-23’ was awarded to the Department of Psychiatry, AFMC at the National CME held at St John’s Medical College, Bangalore on 26 Nov 2022. The award was received by the then Prof and Head of Dept, Psychiatry, AFMC Pune - Surg Cmde Kaushik Chatterjee.

Department of Psychiatry was approached by the Principal Scientific Advisor to GoI in Jun-Jul 2020 for development of National Digital Wellbeing Platform and an app to augment mental well-being of Indian citizens by delivery of Positive Mental Health intervention over smartphones. MANAS which stands for ‘Mental Health and Normalcy Augmentation System’ was endorsed as a national program by the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) and was jointly executed by NIMHANS Bengaluru, AFMC Pune and C-DAC Bengaluru.
A sum of Rs. 18.39 lakh was received by the Department in Dec 2020 for phase I of the project.
AFMC produced 02 modules (Good sleep and Mindfulness) in English and Hindi which were digitized by ICARUS/ BECIL for UIX. A backend software was created.
After the successful completion of phase I, a sum of Rs. 25,69,460/- has been allotted to AFMC in Oct 2021 for execution of phase II. A third module on social connectedness and extensive field trial are planned over the next 06 months.

Annual National Conference of Military Psychiatry-2022 (ANCEMP-2022) was organized on 11-12 Nov 2022 by Dept of Psychiatry, AFMC Pune.

The theme of the Conference was ‘Psychological Resilience of combat forces: Future Directions’.

It scheduled 06 scientific sessions with 14 Free paper presentations and 31 Poster Presentations held.

Two Workshops on Operationalization of MHCA-2017 and Neuromodulation: rTMS and tDCS: Practical considerations were conducted.

A Health and Wellness Mela is being organized at Dhanvantari Auditorium, AFMC Pune from 13- 18 Mar 2023 as a part of Campaign for Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav and Platinum Jubilee of AFMC, for the families.

The role of Psychiatry was to screen the attending families for Anxiety, Depression, Stress, and sleep issues. A total of 163 ladies were screened, and based on that, further evaluation and treatment was carried out.

Manas Codeathon and Symposium on Metal Health and Wellness - 2023 organised at Bangalore on 07-08 Oct 2023.

A total of 118 teams from all over India participated in giving ideas for development of mental health apps, and Teams from the Dept of Psychiatry AFMC won both 1st and 2nd prizes.

Maj Mohit Agrawal and Maj Amandeep Singh Dhaliwal, under the mentorship of Lt Col Prateek Yadav, won the first prize.

Medical Cadet Gaurav Jalal, under the mentorship of Dr Kalpana Srivastava, won the 2nd Prize.

Lt Col Archana Chauhan and Surg Lt Cdr Shilpa Mandal participated in Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) West Zone Quiz through online portal on 15 Sep 2023 and qualified with the first place for the next round, where they secured second position in the final quiz, held at Kolhapur.

Surg Lt Cdr Shilpa Mandal and Maj Priya Deepak (Retd) participated in the Forensic Quiz at the National Forensic Psychiatry Symposium 2023 held at Maharashtra Institute of Mental Health, Pune - on 23 Sep 2023 and secured third position.

World Mental Health Day 2023 was celebrated at Dhanvantari Auditorium, by Dept of Psychiatry, AFMC on 10 Oct 2023.

The program was composed of a lecture on Marital health, Role play on Promoting marital harmony, a Panel discussion on Mental wellness, and a Lecture on Self-empowerment and positive lifestyle by a rep of Bramhakumaris.

Strength of about 50 Officers and 500 JCO/ORs and families attended the event.

Dept of Psychiatry participated in the Annual National conference of Association of Industrial Psychiatry of India held online from 15 -17 Dec 2023.

Dr Kalpana Srivastava- elected president of Association of Industrial Psychiatry of India and delivered a talk on Digital mental health.

Col VS Chauhan and Lt col Prateek Yadav were invited speakers.

Our PG residents got many prizes:
Dy Comdt Adil Rai- best Paper by a PG Resident.
Best Poster award- Surg Lt Cdr Shilpa Mondal.
Best Free Papers- Maj Sukriti Pruthi and Dr Nandish M.

Postgraduate Workshop
A ‘Neuromodulation Workshop’ was organized by Dept of Psychiatry at Aprameya Hall, AFMC for PG residents on 11 Feb 2024.

52 Psychiatry residents from 05 local medical colleges attended the workshop and acquired hands-on experience about rTMS and ECT.

Undergraduate Workshop

Dept of Psychiatry organized a Neuromodulation workshop as a part of the Illuminati Conference at AFMC on 21 Mar 2024.
It was an initiative to sensitize Undergraduate students about the basics of procedures like ECT, rTMS and tDCS.
o 57 undergraduates from more than 15 medical colleges across the country attended the conference and the session witnessed an engaging discussion.

The Team of Neuromodulation Workshop with the enthusiastic Undergraduate students

Maj Amandeep Singh Dhaliwal, 2nd year resident presented a poster under the guidance of faculty of Dept of Psychiatry in SANGAM International Conference held in IIT Bombay.

Med Cadet Gaurav Jalal of G3 batch presented a paper in the same conference under the mentorship of Dr Kalpana Srivastava, Scientist ‘G’. He was awarded a special prize for Undergraduate participation.

RESEARCH WORKS The Department of Psychiatry has been active in research. Research has been carried out on varied topics like association of life events of soldiers with psychopathology in their children, Mental health of temporarily separated family members, volumetric analysis of brain regions of patients with Alcohol Dependence Syndrome, role of cognitive enhancers in electroconvulsive therapy induced cognitive deficits, management of problem drinkers at unit level, development of scales for assessment of life events of serving personnel, scales for quality of life of military families, empathy among medical students etc.
Currently, translational research in collaboration with various centres of eminence is underway. in Understanding the role of circulatory miRNAs in chronic alcoholics with impaired glucose tolerance study with ICMR, retinal cytoarchitecture in freshly diagnosed bipolar affective disorder, expression of specific micro RNAs and gene variations in Alcohol Dependence Syndrome cases to name a few.