Sustainability scholars
Sustainability scholars are advanced trainees in psychiatry who use their special interest day each week to work with the RCPsych Sustainability and Planetary Health Committee for a period of one year.
This is a programme aimed at developing high achieving trainees knowledge and skills in leadership and sustainable quality improvement. Scholars get a dedicated study budget for their project and training and mentoring throughout the year.
Meet our Sustainability scholars:
Dr Douglas Kohler
Doug is an ST6 dual trainee in child and adult psychiatry and the psychiatry of intellectual disabilities, currently working in a childhood neurodevelopmental clinic in Oxford. He has an interest in nature-based interventions for children and young people, and is also an honorary clinical tutor at Oxford University's department of psychiatry. He has recently joined the EcoCAMHS network, and is a member of a local Green Social Prescribing Group.
He is using his time as a Sustainability Scholar to contribute to a joint project between the Planetary Health and Sustainability Committee and the Human Rights Committee on the intersection of climate change, mental health, and human rights. He will also focus on local research into green social prescribing for children and young people on CAMHS waiting lists.
Dr Liam Embliss
Liam is an ST4 in Intellectual Disability Psychiatry, currently working in north London. He is a longstanding member of the pressure group Psych Declares and has published on the topic of medical activism.
As a Sustainability Scholar, Liam aims to develop a heatwave care plan for people with intellectual disabilities, using a climate-adaptation approach.
He also hopes to establish a relationship between the Planetary Health and Sustainability Committee and the Intellectual Disability Faculty in the College.
Dr Stefan McKenzie
Stefan is an ST5 in Old Age Psychiatry in Sheffield, currently working in an older adult community mental health team.
He has previously looked at sustainability within medical education and co-led a project that embedded topics of the climate emergency and sustainability within the Psychiatry module in the Medicine undergraduate course at the University of Sheffield.
As Sustainability scholar, he will be working with the College Centre for Quality Improvement (CCQI) to embed sustainability principles into the next update of the core standards, as part of implementing the College’s guidance on delivering net zero mental health care. He will also be continuing with his above work in medical education.