Meet Dr Sean Halstead, Stage 2 Psychiatry Registrar at Metro South Addiction and Mental Health Services, and recipient of the 2024 RANZCP Foundation PhD scholarship.

1) Tell us a little bit about yourself

I was born and raised on the southside of Brisbane and have lived in Southeast Queensland my whole life, venturing only so far as the Gold Coast where I completed my medical degree at Griffith University. Now back in Brisbane since university, I’m currently a Stage 2 Psychiatry Trainee completing my Child & Adolescent term with Metro South Addiction and Mental Health Services.

I became involved in psychiatric research as a blue-eyed naïve medical student where I had the privilege to work with a group of delightful clinical academic psychiatrists, which then evolved into the opportunity to undertake a PhD.

2) What motivated you to choose psychiatry and what has been the most surprising part of your journey so far?

 Psychiatry consistently piqued my interest throughout medical school, and it stuck out to me as the ‘cool’ specialty.  The opportunity to be able to talk to patients about their lives and stories, rather than just their rash (dermatology was never on the cards I’m afraid), was very alluring. The most surprising part of my journey with psychiatry has been the frequent realisation of how much we don’t know about mental illness, and this has only further fostered my interest in research.

3) You were one of the 2024 RANZCP Foundation PhD scholarship recipients, congratulations! What was that application process like, and tell us a little bit about your research topic?

Being awarded the Foundation Partners scholarship is an enormous honour and huge privilege. The application process was streamlined through being on a central College platform. I’d strongly recommend other registrars and junior researchers be on the lookout for similar opportunities.

For my PhD, I am exploring the epidemiology of multiple physical diseases (physical multimorbidity) amongst people with severe mental illness in order to better understand drivers of the vast health inequity faced by this cohort.

4) Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

As the son of a librarian, I am something of a bookworm and spend a lot of time reading fiction; I tend to feel angsty if I travel anywhere without having a book on hand. I do try to keep up a mixture of other activities, such as running along the Brisbane river, hacking away on the guitar, learning languages, and spending time with friends and family.

5) What do you think is the most exciting thing about the future of psychiatry?

Given psychiatry’s complex and chequered history, it is sobering to view the progress made in the recognition and treatment of mental illness. However, critical work is still to be done, particularly with regards to the health inequity experienced by people living with mental illness. I am excited to see how psychiatry continues to evolve in the years to come, and how this is shaped both by scientific advances alongside shifts across the broader social and cultural landscapes.