Dr Gordon Donnir

Dr Gordon M. Donnir, until enrolling in a PhD Psychiatry program (research focus in forensic psychiatry) at the University of Newcastle, Australia, practised in Ghana as a General Psychiatrist & Head of Department for the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry, the second-largest tertiary & teaching facility in Ghana. He is a Senior Specialist with the teaching hospital currently on study leave for a PhD (Psychiatry). Since 2009, he has garnered experience in teaching medical students, nursing students, graduate clinical pharmacy students, herbal (alternative) medicine practitioners and residents in psychiatry in Ghana. His expertise stretches further to include setting up, designing and implementing a psychiatry residency program of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons and the second site for training psychiatrists in Ghana at the hospital's department. He was an adjunct faculty member at his alma mater, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology School of Medicin and Dentistry, Kumasi, Ghana and a part-time lecturer with the School of Medical Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana. He has taught alongside professors and psychiatrists in various subspecialties from Harvard University, University of Alabama, the Maudsley in the UK, and institutions in Canada as visiting faculty at the University of Cape Coast School of Medical Sciences. Through his collaborative work, he has fostered joint training of residents in Ghana with institutions like Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Residency Program (Harvard University) and Boston University Global Mental Health Division, which began in August 2016 and piloted for three months with a subsequent full roll-out. His people-centred skills earned him another collaborative relationship with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, USA in the areas of research capacity building for psychiatry residents and other mental health professionals at his hospital department, postgraduate teaching models and global mental health initiatives. Initial steps for this collaboration was presented at the APA annual meeting in San Diego in May 2017 under the topic "Thinking Globally, Working Locally: Establishing and Maintaining Global Mental Health Training Programs in Low-Resource Countries." He is a passionate and committed mental health educator with significant experience in this area from leading and rebuilding a general hospital psychiatric department to meet international standing which also serves as teaching and training site for both undergraduate and postgraduate students from a mix of backgrounds.
His contribution to knowledge includes co-authoring two book chapters one of which is “Psychotherapy in Indigenous Context: A Ghanaian Contribution Towards Provision of Culturally Competent Care” in the “Handbook of Research on Theoretical Perspectives on Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Developing Countries”. He also authored a handbook for first-line middle-level mental health professionals solely for use at selected primary care facilities in Ghana - “handbook for primary mental healthcare: a practical guide”. He also served as Co-PI and PI on several completed and ongoing research projects in Ghana. He volunteered his time, skills and knowledge as a consultant and facilitator in collaboration with mental health NGOs in running outreach clinics and trainer of trainees programs throughout Ghana, to scale up the reach of mental health service delivery.
Since December 2014 to mid-2017, he served as a member of the Janssen Steering Committees on Schizophrenia, Neuropsychiatry, Neuroscience and Pain.
His research interests focus on policy implications for mental health and transportation especially driving, the interface between criminality, mental health and the law (Forensic Psychiatry) and prison mental healthcare, Suicide, addiction psychiatry and mental health triage at the ER. His current research which is the focus of his PhD, is looking to answer the question "how do judges incorporate mental ill-health into decision-making regarding mentally ill offenders?". This project seeks to help develop a model for establishing a forensic mental health system to support the criminal justice system in Ghana.
He is a member of the Ghana Psychiatric Association, Ghana Epilepsy Association, The World Federation for Mental Health, The Mental Health and Well-Being Foundation of Ghana, Mental Health Advocacy Ghana, Legal and Human Rights Committee of the Mental Health Advocacy Ghana, Media and Social Media/Public Education Committee Member of the Mental Health Advocacy Ghana, the World Psychiatric Association, Vice President of the Mental Health and Well-being Foundation (an Australian registered Mental Health Charity) and an International Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He has presented at both local and international conferences and been a panel member for discussing relevant topics in the field of psychiatry at conferences.
He is a medical graduate of the School of Medical Sciences (now School of Medicine and Dentistry), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, where he obtained BSc in Human Biology and subsequently MBChB. He further trained and specialised as a psychiatrist with the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons Faculty of Psychiatry. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the China Europe International Business School.