A video on “Stigma” is now available on the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) website and YouTube channel
The World Health Organization has defined stigma as “a mark of shame, disgrace or disapproval that results in an individual being rejected, discriminated against and excluded from participating in a number of different areas of society, because of an illness” which in our area of interest would be a mental illness.
The members of the WPA medical student working group, wanted to understand how stigma might impact not only the lives of psychiatric patients, but also the lives of mental health professionals, furthermore, the lives of those who are currently studying medicine and are about to decide what area of medicine to choose.
This interest parted from the belief that the same components of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural stigma may impact medical students, who are considering psychiatry as their specialty. With this charge in mind, we invited medical students from around the world to share their thoughts and feelings about the stigma associated with becoming a psychiatrist. Students from South Africa, Ghana, Egypt, Nepal, Indonesia, Brazil, Thailand, Australia, Portugal, Turkey, Canada, and Ecuador were kind enough to accept this challenge. Please join us in learning about their exciting and enlightening viewpoints. We encourage you to listen to the new generation of physicians, who told us among other things “…stigma is no longer an impenetrable barrier…”
The video is available in English, French, Spanish and Russian and can be viewed on the WPA YouTube channel here or you can watch the videos by clicking on the links below:
Author: Dr. Bernardo Ng (Member of the WPA Working Group "Medical Students" Leadership team)