Listening to hear... Psychiatry begins with listening. Mine was sharpened somewhere I never expected to find it. For all the admin, the on-call unpredictability, and the quiet worry of whether we got the care right, the heart of our work stays simple. We listen. I wanted to practise that somewhere unfamiliar, before it became the thing I would do for a living. So I joined Diem: an AI-powered social search engine and community app built for women and non-binary people, created

There are partnerships of convenience, and there are partnerships of conviction. Ours with Mobihealth International belongs firmly in the latter. Mobihealth was founded in 2017 by Dr Funmi Adewara, a Nigerian-British physician and Cambridge-trained bioscience entrepreneur. Her career has been shaped by a question that returns again and again in the lives of clinicians from the diaspora: how does quality healthcare reach the people who need it most, in the places it has histor

Many CASC guides concentrate on the mechanics of the examination: the types of stations that recur, and a candidate's ability to recall scenarios encountered before. Herein lies the difficulty. Candidates who lean too heavily on such resources can become preoccupied with reproducing structures rather than demonstrating judgement. The result, at the examination itself, is often a performance that sounds rehearsed, even mechanical. For UK-educated candidates and native speakers

In October 2025, the World Psychiatric Association met for its annual Congress, and amid the papers and proceedings something of quieter consequence occurred. A document was opened for signature, the Prague Agreement, modest in its wording and considerable in its reach. It asks the world to fund mental health as it ought to be funded, and it makes that case not on compassion alone, but on economics. The scale is not in doubt. Mental ill-health costs the world in the region of

During the RCPsych Congress, Nigerian psychiatrists and friends gathered for a Meet and Greet that felt less like an event and more like a homecoming. It began, as the best evenings often do, without ceremony. There are gatherings that conduct business, and gatherings that simply remind people they belong to something. This was the latter. On the evening of 17 June 2026, as the day dawned at the RCPsych Congress in Liverpool, members and friends came together at Kemola Lounge

NPUK member Dr Olayiwola Ajileye was at the UNIWA Seniors Gathering. There is a particular kind of medicine that does not happen in clinics. It happens in church halls, at gatherings of elders, in the unhurried company of people who have lived long enough to know that health is rarely just a matter of the body. On 24th May 2026, the United Nigeria Welfare Association (UNIWA) hosted its Over 60s Get-Together at Kingstanding Methodist Church Hall in Birmingham. The afternoon br

Every mile a message... There are forms of advocacy that happen in clinics, and forms that happen along long stretches of road, twenty-six point two miles at a time. Dr Chioma Maduka, a mental health doctor, has chosen both. In August, she will line up at the start of the Sydney Marathon, her fourth Abbott World Marathon Major. Berlin, Chicago, and most recently Tokyo in March of this year, are already behind her. Sydney will bring her to four of the seven stars. The remainin

There are clinicians whose international work announces itself in headlines, and others whose contributions take a quieter shape. Professor Nandini Chakraborty belongs to the latter group, and NPUK is honoured to welcome her as a forthcoming guest speaker. Nandini is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Early Intervention in Psychosis at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust and Professor at the University of Leicester. Her clinical, educational, and academic standing is considerable,

Glamour meets mind... At first glance, the Miss Universe Nigeria and the field of Psychiatry may appear to exist in entirely different worlds. One is often associated with glamour, public representation, and performance; the other with clinical practice, mental suffering, and the complexity of the human mind. However, my journey through both spaces has shown me that they share a common foundation: humanity, empathy, and the desire to create meaningful social impact. As a me

18th April 2026, a remarkable evening at the heart of Nigeria's capital city. Music is more than entertainment, it is a powerful psychological and physiological tool. There is an established body of evidence that suggests there is a therapeutic benefit with musical relaxation Dr Olayiwola Ajileye (Ola) conceived, championed, and delivered this vision as Chairman and Grand Patron of the Orchestra, drawing partners from Nigeria, the UK, the USA, and Canada to make it possible.