Honorary Fellows and President’s medal winners accept awards at virtual ceremony

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President's Medal winners and Honorary Fellows accepted their awards at a virtual presentation ceremony today.

The presentation ceremony would normally take place during the International Congress but was held online this year for the first time. Our President Dr Adrian James and Registrar Dr Trudi Seneviratne hosted the event and introduced each recipient who then gave an acceptance speech.

Each year the President and the nomination committee nominates up to seven medal winners and up to five Honorary fellows.

The Honorary Fellowship award is the highest accolade that the College can give members, and is presented to individuals who have demonstrated distinguished service to humanity in relation to the study, prevention or treatment of mental illness or psychiatry throughout their careers.

Honorary Fellows

The five newly appointed Honorary Fellows are:

• Dr Navina Evans CBE - Dr Evans is the newly appointed Chief Executive of Health Education England. Before taking the helm at HEE she had been Chief Executive at East London Foundation NHS Trust (ELFT), where she led them to win ‘Trust of the Year’ and oversaw the Trust being rated as Outstanding by the CQC. In 2019 she was awarded a Commander of the British Empire for her services to NHS leadership and the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic community.
• Sir Norman Lamb - Currently Chair of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. A long-standing and active campaigner for mental health, he has worked to challenge stigma around mental health and to ensure people with mental health issues are treated with the same priority as patients with physical health needs. He was also a former health minister from 2012 to 2015. In 2019, Sir Norman Lamb received a knighthood in the Queen’s birthday honours for his public and political service, notably his contribution to mental health.
• Professor Sir Michael Owen - Professor Sir Mike Owen is a Professor of Psychological Medicine. He studied medicine and neurosciences in Birmingham and psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, London, before training in molecular genetics at St Mary’s Hospital, London. He researches into the molecular basis of a wide range of psychiatric disorders and his clinical interests focus on diagnosis and management of psychotic illness. Professor Sir Mike Owen received his knighthood for services to Neuroscience and Mental Health in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2014.
• Professor Paul Summergrad - Paul Summergrad is Psychiatrist-in-Chief for Tufts Medical Centre, the Dr Frances S. Arkin Professor and Chairman of Psychiatry and Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, and Chairman of the Tufts Medical Centre Physicians Organization. He is a former president of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and of the American Association of Chairs of Departments of Psychiatry.  An international leader in medical psychiatric illness and care, his research focuses on mood disorders, medical-psychiatric illness, and health system design. He is also a sought-after speaker and has given lectures worldwide.
• Louis Theroux - Louis Theroux is a documentary filmmaker, journalist, broadcaster, and author. After graduating from The University of Oxford, he became a journalist in California, before branching into documentary filmmaking, often setting out to “discover the genuinely odd in the most ordinary setting”. Several of his BBC 2 Specials have focused on psychiatric conditions and treatments, including explorations of autism, dementia, children with mental health disorders on prescription medication, mothers experiencing serious postpartum depression, addictions and eating disorders.

President's Medal recipients

The winners of the President’s Medals are as follows:

• Professor Mohammed Al-Uzri - Professor Al-Uzri is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Associate Medical Director at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust and the Honorary Chair (Department of Health Sciences, College of Life Sciences) at the University of Leicester. He is currently the Presidential Lead for International Affairs and has been specialist advisor on the Medical Training Initiative.
• Dr Aggrey Burke - Dr Burke is a psychiatrist, senior lecturer and specialist in mental illness in ethnic minority families. In the 1980s, he co-wrote a ground-breaking paper for the Medical Education Journal that exposed a ‘colour bar’ in London medical schools. Dr Burke continues to write about race and equality.
• Dr Mandy Johnstone - Her research interests are in the clinical and molecular mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia. Dr Johnstone provides psychiatry consultant leadership to the scoping and development of clinical genomic services for the South London and Maudsley Trust and is based within the National Psychosis Unit.
• Dr Daniel Maughan - Dr Maughan is medical lead for Oxford Healthcare Improvement and consultant psychiatrist for the early intervention service for Oxfordshire. He was also the RCPsych Associate Registrar for sustainability and chaired the Sustainability Committee, working on stimulating the adoption of sustainable practices in mental health.
• Ms Veryan Richards - Veryan contributes towards shaping the policy narrative and improving patient experience in several areas of healthcare. She is a conference speaker and author/co-author of several articles and Royal College of Psychiatrists Reports and documents. She has been the Patient Representative on numerous committees and working groups.
• Dr Amanda Thompsell - Dr Thompsell recently completed four years as chair of the Faculty of Old Age Psychiatry at the College.  She was vice-chair of the NICE Guidelines development of medicines management in care homes and led on the improving care in dementia workstream for the London Dementia Strategic Clinical leadership group.
• Dr Tony Zigmond - Dr Zigmond has been a consultant in adult psychiatry for nearly thirty years. He writes and lectures extensively on mental health law and has designed and delivered Section 12 and Approved Clinician courses since their inception. He was a Special Advisor in the House of Lords during the Mental Health Bill’s passage through Parliament. He has also advised on mental health law reform in a number of other countries.