Unseen: Field Notes of a Global Psychiatrist

The book aspires to educate on the mental health gap by showing rather than telling and using narrative rather than epidemiology and statistics.

Craig L. Katz is a professor of psychiatry, medical education, and system design at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, USA, and the founder and director of Mount Sinai’s ＂Program in Global Mental Health.＂ He earned his MD from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, followed by his internship in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital and residency in psychiatry from the New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York. Inspired by their chance involvement in helping families following the fatal crash of Swiss Air Flight 111 in 1998, Dr Katz and his colleagues co-founded Disaster Psychiatry Outreach (DPO), with him as its president, to utilize psychiatrists to help future disaster-affected communities. This foresight later enabled DPO to organize hundreds of psychiatrists to provide support and care after 9/11. However, when DPO ventured to overseas places like post-tsunami Sri Lanka in early 2005, he was dismayed by how underserved mental health needs were even before the disasters. He decided he no longer wanted to wait for disaster to strike and founded the Mount Sinai Program in Global Mental Health to try to improve everyday access to mental health care for everyone, everywhere.