IPA Bulletin
Editor's Note - Focus on Korea

David J. Ames

There is something of a Korean flavor to this latest issue of IPA Bulletin, with a thoughtful article on epidemiology by Guk-Hee Suh (who is doing excellent local research) and a piece on the clinical scene in Korean old age psychiatry by the hardworking Byoung Hoon Oh, whom we got to know a little when he visited Melbourne for a few months over a year ago, and who turns out to be a closet Alfred Brendel fan (at least he has a picture of the great pianist in his office!).

Over the last three years Pfizer have been great supporters of education in the psychiatry of old age in our region by funding courses in China, Hong Kong, Korea, Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan. They supported a visit by IPA President Edmond Chiu, several of his nursing, support and allied health staff and myself to Seoul in early June. There we participated in what we were told was the first ever meeting in which psychiatrists helped with the education of general practitioners on topics related to the psychiatry of old age. We also visited services and assisted in a two-day “Arie” course on the clinical and organizational psychiatry of old age for local psychiatrists, geriatricians, nurses and allied health staff. The way Korea has bounced back from economic adversity through sheer hard work and determination is mirrored in the can-do attitude of the enthusiastic staff whom we met on visits to their excellent hospital and community services.

The Koreans have something to teach about the rapid development of effective inpatient and community resources for an aging population. If you do not have any Korean friends yet, make some at the next IPA meeting you attend! Of course, many of you will be reading this just before or even at the IPA Congress in Nice. Philippe Robert and his organizing committee have prepared a superb program for us and I look forward with keen anticipation to my first visit to the region in nearly a decade, as well as to the chance to reconnect with many friends and colleagues.

Another highlight of this issue is Tom Arie’s first article for our newsletter. Tom is a giant figure in our specialty, a mover and shaker who has had a huge impact on the development of old age psychiatry in Britain and beyond her shores—not least through the British Council funded courses, which introduced our president and many others to the field, and in whose honor our Australian and Asian educational initiatives have been named. In one sense it is sad that he writes of the passing of two great figures, Alex Comfort and Felix Post. But there is a sense, too, of two lives filled to the full and of achievements that will form a lasting memorial.

Elsewhere we continue the eclectic traditions of the IPA Bulletin with meeting reports, research and practice articles and an inaugural piece from the new assistant editor for Internet matters, in addition to the Bulletin’s regular items.

Your chance to submit an article and see it published under my editorship is fast receding. The new editor of IPA Bulletin will take over with the June 2002 issue. We still need copy for December and March. I would like to extend our “Religions of the World” series before I hand over and have commissioned a piece on Roman Catholicism from my Irish-Australian wife and my Sicilian-Australian Geriatrician colleague (talk about a commitment to multiculturalism!). If you want to write about Islam, Non-conformist/Protestant Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Humanism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shinto or any of the other great systems of faith, please get to it now and let me know! I also crave a contribution from a social worker.

David J. Ames, Editor of the IPA Bulletin, can be contacted at the Department of Psychiatry, 7th Floor, Charles Connibere Building, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Vic 3050, Australia (tel: +61 3 9342 2515, fax: +61 3 9387 9201, e-mail: dames@unimelb.edu.au).       -----------------------------

David Ames

Reprinted from IPA Bulletin, Volume 18, Number 3