Royal Society of Medicine Young Research Trainee of the Year 2011

Psychiatrist Dr Rina Dutta has been awarded first place in the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) Psychiatry Section Mental Health Foundation Research Prize.

Dr Dutta is an MRC Research Training Fellow and Academic Lecturer at King's College London, whose clinical practice is with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) in the Trust's national affective disorders service.

The award is for the most outstanding published paper reporting original research work by the principal author in the last year.  Dr Dutta's submission was her paper in the Archives of General Psychiatry (Dutta R, Murray RM, Hotopf M, Allardyce J, Jones PB, Boydell J. (2010) Reassessing the Long-term Risk of Suicide After a First Episode of Psychosis.  Arch Gen Psych 67:1230-1237.)

Dr Dutta was then one of only six research trainees shortlisted from all medical and surgical specialties for the Royal Society of Medicine Young Research Trainee of the Year Award sponsored by Wesleyan Assurance.

The Finals was a black tie event at the RSM on Tuesday 22 November at which the finalists had to present their work to a general medical audience and judges included the President of the RSM, Professor Parveen Kumar, Dean of the RSM, Professor John Betteridge and Dame Deirdre Hine, Past President of the RSM and former Welsh Chief Medical Officer. 

The candidates were judged on their ability to communicate with a non-specialist medical audience and to field questions from the floor.

Later at the awards dinner with her invited guests, Professor Til Wykes, Professor Anthony Cleare, Dr Elvira Bramon-Bosch and Dr Javier Lopez-Morinigo, Dr Dutta was awarded the first prize of £3000 and a year's RSM Membership and named RSM Young Research Trainee of the Year 2011. 

Dr Dutta said "It was a wonderful evening and a lovely surprise, as it could have been anyone's game. All the medics and surgeons were so accomplished. Anyway for the first time the Cinderella specialty won in the end, which is fantastic news for Psychiatry!"