The Department of Psychological Medicine at King's College London is the largest department in the Institute of Psychiatry Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN). It currently has around 20 full-time academics and a total of approximately 100 members of staff. The department has approximately 50 doctoral students.

The large number of staff and students in the Department provides an environment which is very beneficial to research students because:

• of the research and clinical expertise available
• of the structures which are in place to help students achieve their goals
• of the collegiality and support that is afforded by having other young researchers going through the same experience.

The Head of the Department is Professor Trudie Chalder. 

The department is research-led but in addition, has a broad teaching and clinical remit. The mental health problems of particular interest are those of the common mental disorders, such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, liaison psychiatry, military mental health, perinatal psychiatry, and stress related disorders.

Research in the Department of Psychological Medicine

There are eight major research groups in the Department. They all have an extensive research portfolios and an established record for obtaining funding and publishing research in high impact journals. The department has a well-developed framework for helping research students to:

• find the most suitable supervisors

• to integrate into research groups

• to develop their projects

• to monitor their progress

• to obtain specialist help e.g. with data analysis

• to obtain pastoral care e.g. to present their data at meetings

• to provide guidance with thesis and viva preparation.

All of the research groups work closely with service users, their families, and healthy volunteers i.e in relation to clinical projects. The research groups are:

• Affective Disorders

• Diabetes and Psychiatry

• Eating Disorders

• General Hospital Psychiatry

• King's Centre for Military Health Research

• Mental Health, Ethics and Law

• Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology Laboratory & Section of Perinatal Psychiatry

• Trauma Studies

Research students may conduct their postgraduate studies within one of these groups or their project may go across two groups. In some cases, it could involve research with a group elsewhere in King's, for instance, in the Centre for Neuroimaging Studies. In fact, if regulatory conditions are met, the project could involve a collaboration with a group in another university or country.

Clinical Academic Groups (CAG)

To facilitate and to fund clinical academic research, Kings Health Partners has a number of clinical academic groups. Psychological Medicine as a Department is part of the Clinical Academic Group (CAG) with the same name. This CAG within King’s Health Partners seeks to cross the divide between psychiatry and medicine.

The principal research methodologies used within the department are clinical, psychological, biological (including genetics and neuroimaging) and epidemiological. These approaches include cross sectional studies, cohort studies and randomised controlled trials (RCTs).

Teaching in the Department of Psychological Medicine

In addition to research and clinical work, the department is very involved in teaching. This occurs across a wide range of programmes and specialist subject areas and in many cases is done via formal lectures.

Teaching in the department also includes structured events such as research student “showcases” (presentation of work to peers and to staff) and also debates: this means that research students develop presentation skills and become able to assess and discuss data and conclusions. These transferable skills are very important for student development both in terms of becoming “part of the dialogue of their subject area” but also as a preparation for life after their PhD.

In addition to the research associated issues described above, the teaching environment in the Department means that research students can have the opportunity to become informed on a very wide area of specialist theoretical and practical topics. For example, the Department is involved in the teaching of full time and part time Master's programmes such as the MSc in Mental Health Studies or the MSc in War & Psychiatry.

The department also hosts The Maudsley Forum, an international annual four day conference, for psychiatrists, psychologists and others interested in mental health: this gives participants the opportunity to learn about the most current advances in clinical and academic psychiatry. In addition, the department runs a series of e-interactive, popular debates on mental health issues: these attract well known speakers and are attended by service users, carers, professionals, journalists and members of the public.

Research students have access to an extensive programme of teaching related to issues such as ethics, statistics, research project design etc., and in fact, are required to attend a number of these as part of their training.