This World Mental Health Day (10th October), six mental health and medical organisations from India and the United Kingdom- India Mental Health Alliance (IMHA), the Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS), Indian Teachers of Psychiatry (IToP), World Psychiatric Association Zone 15 (WPA), Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (UK) and Accept Support Help Another (ASHA Kerala); have come together to launch the ‘Humanising Medicine India Initiative’.
Dr Kavita Arora, Founding Cohort, IMHA, Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, and Co-founder at Children First said, “It is a national initiative aimed at fostering a culture in which medical professionals can acknowledge their own lived experiences of mental health challenges, disabilities, distress, caregiving, grief and seek support without fear or stigma. The initiative reflects this year’s World Mental Health Day theme of ‘Lived experiences heard: Real voices, real change.’”
Dr T S Sathyanarayana Rao, president, Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) said, “As psychiatrists, we often support others through their struggles, yet our own journeys of resilience, vulnerability, hope, and healing are equally important. Together, let us embrace the wisdom of lived experience, learn from one another, and move towards Prashanti, a journey towards peace, balance, and inner well being!
The initiative will culminate in two key commitments: an individual ‘Care for Self Pledge’, encouraging doctors to recognise and care for their own wellbeing without shame, and a ‘Culture of Care Charter’, through which pan Indian institutions will formally commit to creating safer environments for conversations around lived experiences and help-seeking.
The scale of the challenge is particularly stark among doctors in India. The burden appears to begin before doctors even enter the workforce: an Indian meta-analysis found depressive symptoms in approximately one in two undergraduate medical students. A study of resident doctors and faculty at a tertiary-care hospital found that 30.1% screened positive for depression, 16.7% reported suicidal ideation and more than 90% experienced some level of burnout. Doctors in India have also been reported to face a suicide risk 2.5 times that of the general population.
These figures point to a challenge that extends beyond the prevalence of distress itself: the culture within medicine can make it difficult for professionals to acknowledge vulnerability and seek support, for fear of judgement, stigma or questions about their professional competence. The Humanising Medicine India Initiative sets out to close this gap between how common distress is and how rarely it gets disclosed, by challenging the idea that bringing your whole self to the work in healthcare is incompatible with the professional identity.
Sharing his views on this, Professor Subodh Dave, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK) said, “Humanising medicine is not fundamentally about disclosure. It is about expanding what we recognise as expertise. Doctors bring not only their training, knowledge and clinical experience to medicine, but also their lived experience of being human. We want to create a culture where caring for oneself is understood as part of caring for others, and where seeking help is seen as compatible with being a good doctor.”
