I graduated from the Univeristy of Sydney in 1985, finished my psychiatric training in 1992 and worked in London in the fireld of Old Age Psychiatry as a consultant at UCH, St Pancras and Friern Barnett Hospitals.  I then worked at the Zentralinstitut for Seelische Gesundheit in Mannheim with Professor Robert Olbrich.

On return to Australia I was the Assistant Director for the Wentworth Area Mental Health Service and ran a busy outer metropolitan inpatient and community unit.  At this stage my interst in research was rekindled and I returned to start a PhD with Dr Evian Gordon at Westmead Hospital.  As part of this I started early intervention in psychosis programs in Western Sydney and with Dr John Brennan coordinated a large research program into the clinical, psychophysiology, neurocognitive and neuroimaging of first episode schizophrenia.

I joined the Discipline of Psychological Medicine at the Univeristy of Sydney as part of this and now head the education/curriculum development within the discipline. 

Out of medicine and research my three children and wife live with me in a bush area of Sydney, the centre of much environmental activism by my wife, Conny, recently elected to local government.

My research interests centre on three seperate areas.

Psychophysiology of Schizophrenia

I have a longstanding interest in the psychophysiology of schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses.  Specifically can the deficits in connectivity that are probably at the heart of these disorders be measured and do these measurements reflect changes in clinical state, medication or disease progression.  I completed my PhD in the area of electroencephalography in schizophrenia investigating two populations of subjects with the disorder (see publication list). The first a group with chronic schizophrenia, the second an early onset group.  The results suggested that the pathological process in schizophrenia was well entrenched at the time of presentation to services. This research is continuing with the recruitment of a second group of early onset suffers examining aspects of changes in gamma synchrony.

Treatment of Schizophrenia

I have been investigating the use of computer assisted cognitive remediation (CACR) in remediating the cognitive deficits found in schizophrenia.  I have recently completed a trial of CACR utilising the NEAR approach advocated by Professor Alice Medalia of Columbia Univeristy.  With this we were able to successfully improve the cognitive performance of people with schizophrenia and had indications that this was flowing through to functional performance.  This work is being extended into a trial of teatment for social cognition deficits (Mental State Reasoning) which I am conducting in cooperation with the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science.

As part of this program I will be completing a review of the area for the Cochrane Collaboration.

Social Aspects of Care

Research in this area is examining

• the effectiveness of vocational rehabilitation programs in schizophrenia with Dr Josey Anderson
• the effectiveness of Community Treatment Orders on readmission to psychatric units with Drs Grant Sara and Joe Garside in cooperation with the Mental Health Review Tribunal of NSW,
  
• First Episode Psychosis services and the efficiency of care with Dr Grant Sara