Kratzmann Chair in Psychiatry and Population Health
PROFESSOR HARVEY A. WHITEFORD
Whilst the main focus of Toowong Private Hospital is the provision and continual development of mental health services and treatment, the Hospital also recognises it has a responsibility in the equally important aspects of ongoing research, training and education. Toowong Private Hospital is a recognised teaching hospital of The University of Queensland and in early 1999 made an approach to the School of Medicine wishing to extend the partnership by establishing and funding an academic appointment.
The Kratzmann Chair in Psychiatry was established in February 2000 with the inaugural appointment of Dr Harvey Whiteford and was the only fully funded Chair in Psychiatry within the private psychiatric hospitals sector at that time. It remains one of only a very small number today.
In 2005, the Toowong Private Hospital gave a commitment for a second five (5) year term with the Chair extending across the School of Medicine and the School of Population Health and being re-titled the Kratzmann Chair of Psychiatry and Population Health.
Professor Harvey Whiteford continues in the second term of the Kratzmann Professor of Psychiatry and Population Health at The University of Queensland and is also Director of the Policy and Economics Group at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research. At Toowong Private Hospital he undertakes the teaching of medical students and psychiatry registrars as well as providing clinical management to patients admitted under his care. The Kratzmann Chair of Psychiatry and Population Health is also a member of the Hospital's governing body, the Toowong Private Hospital Board.
Professor Whiteford trained in medicine, psychiatry and health policy in Queensland and at Stanford University in the USA. On his return to Australia in 1986 he established what is now the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, one of Australia's leading mental health research centres.
Professor Whiteford has held senior clinical and administrative positions in Australia, including those of Director of Mental Health in Queensland (1989 to 1996) and Director of Mental Health in the Federal government (1997 to 1999). He worked for ten years on the design and implementation of Australia's Mental Health Strategy and was Chairman of the Working Group which oversaw this initiative. In 1999 he was appointed to the first mental health position at the World Bank in Washington DC with the task of developing the Bank's capacity to respond to the rising global burden of mental disorders.
Professor Whiteford's research expertise is in mental health policy analysis, structural reform of mental health services, developing measures of service performance and measuring the impact of mental disorder on role functioning and productivity. He works with the Australian government on mental health reform, is a member of the National Health Committee of the National Health and Medical Council and is a consultant to the World Health Organisation.