Gauthamadas Udipi is a Professor of Psychiatry in India who has been acknowledged for his contribution to the field of Disaster Mental Health in the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami.
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In the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami Dr. Gautham decided to lend his expertise to alleviating trauma of the disaster stricken.[1][2][3] Taking charge as Director of the disaster management psycho-social intervention program of the National Lutheran Health and Medical Board[4] - he propounded a post disaster Social Transformation framework[5][6] and implemented it successfully[7] to provide long-term disaster health-care and psychosocial intervention projects in 51 Tsunami affected villages in Cuddalore District of Tamilnadu,[8][9] 156 quake affected villages in Kashmir,[10][11][12] and flood affected villages in Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh.[13] Dr. Gautham was instrumental in creating a 1000 member strong Disaster Preparedness Youth Task Force in 50 Tsunami affected villages in Cuddalore district in Tamilnadu.[14] His views on designing the health-care disaster relief team feature in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mission 2009 document.[15] One of his unique programs was to link communities affected by different disasters in order that disaster relief and preparedness knowledge may be shared[16][17]
His team has the distinction of being the only group offering medical relief to quake survivors during the deep winter in Indian Kashmir.[18][19][20]
Dr. Gautham organized five International workshops, the reports of which have been widely circulated and are said to have been instrumental in shaping the Sri Lanka Government’s Disaster Management Road Map.[21][22][23] The National Disaster Management Authority of India invited him to review the draft of National Disaster Management Guidelines - Psychosocial Support and Mental Health Services and incorporated his suggestions into the final document.
Status papers on "Social Transformation of Communities Affected by Natural Disasters" and "Psychosocial intervention in complex disasters" by Dr. Gautham, helped to implement recovery in the Tsunami affected communities.[24][25][26][27] The training module for creating Community Support Leaders developed by Dr. Gautham helped transform educated unemployed women in disaster affected regions into community leaders who were respected and looked up to.[28][29]
The Model for Crisis Intervention in Large Scale Disasters using "Lay Community Counsellors"[30] developed by him was used to set up the Community Counselor project in which 2500 villagers of 51 Tsunami affected villages in Cuddalore district were trained as Lay Community Counselors and provided succor to nearly one hundred thousand villagers affected by the trauma of the Tsunami.[31][32][33][34]
Dr. Gautham's Handbook for Community Counselor Trainers[35] is catalogued by the National Library of the Government of India and recommended by the Disaster Risk Management Team of UNDP and the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India and forms part of the Government of India's Disaster Risk Management Program toolkit for "Mainstreaming Disability in Disaster Management.[36] It is catalogued by UNHCR's Humanitarian Library and the Tamilnadu Government Library.[37][38] It has been quoted in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Mission 2009 document on the "Tsunami threat in the Pacific",[39] and the internationally acclaimed "Facilitators Guide for Community Based Psychosocial Services in Humanitarian Assistance".[40] The handbook is one of the recommended material by the Association for Development of Education in Africa.[41] The book has been translated into Japanese[42] and has been used for counseling the traumatized survivors of Japan's worst ever disaster (combined earthquake, Tsunami, and nuclear leak) of 2011. It has also been translated into Romanian.[43]
A bi-lingual (English & Tamil) "Safety and Preparedness Coloring and Activity Book" for children, to prepare them to face day to day crises and future disasters designed by Dr. Gautham has been appreciated by the Education Department of Government of Tamilnadu.
Dr. Gautham has also written a book on Applied Psychology for Police Officers, published by Tamilnadu Police Training Academy, Applied Child Development for Pre Primary Teachers as part of distance education course material for pre-primary teachers, published by Annamalai University, and Disaster Management published by the Christian Institute of Management. He has served on the course material team of the Open University Business School, British Open University (2000 to 2004).
Accredited as an associate faculty by the Open University Business School, UK he taught on their Executive MBA program in India from 1997 to 2003. During this tenure he had the distinction of being the only faculty from India to serve as a discussion leader in the world wide (8000+ strong) on-line student discussion forum for 4 years running.
Dr. Gautham helped to set up the Post Graduate Diploma in Pre Primary Education through Distance Education in 1990 and authored the course materials in Applied Child Development for Teachers.
In 1996, the Child-to-Child Trust, London, invited Dr. Gautham to set up Child-to-Child South India Resource Group and serve as its Honorary Director, a post that he held till 1999 when the assignment of the Group was completed. The Group, composed of experts in the field, monitored, guided, and provided training for projects funded by the Trust in South India.
Dr. Gautham was instrumental in getting the University of Madras to introduce concessions for students with Learning Disability in 2004.
The course designed and taught by him at at California Lutheran University, was a trendsetter[44]
Dr. Gautham is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Psychiatry at MAP Institute of Medical Sciences and Research. He set up the Department of Mental Health at Raja Muthiah Medical College, Annamalai University in 1988 and the Child Behaviour and Development Clinic in 1989, which received recognition by the World Health Organization. The WHO invited him to serve as the sole resource person from India for the WHO Early Childhood Care and Development program in Developing countries from 1993 to 1996.
He has been an academic council member of the Annamalai University (1993 to 1995), and the autonomous MOP Vaishnav College for Women (2001 to 2005). He has been a member of the Board of studies in Psychology (1993 to 1996), and a planning committee member of the Department of Distance Education at Annamalai University (1992 to 1996). He has served on the doctoral board of the Martin Luther Christian University (2006 to 2009). The California Lutheran University invited Dr. Gautham as a Visiting Scholar (Professor) in 2007 & 2008.[45][46][47][48]
Dr. Gautham graduated in Medicine from the Madras Medical College, University of Madras in 1980. He then trained for 2 years in Neurology and Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences and completed his post graduation in Psychiatry from the Institute of Mental Health, Chennai. He holds an MD in Psychiatry, a Diploma in Psychological Medicine, and a Diploma in Child Behavior and Development and has done Doctoral research.[49]
His popular appearances on a popular local-language TV channel to deliver informative tips about mental illness and mental health ran for nearly four years with more than 180 appearances.
Dr. Gautham has appeared on National TV alongside prominent personalities. He has also done live phone-in Q & A programs on local TV channels. He has featured in or written articles on mental health issues for various newspapers and magazines including the Times Group, and the Hindu[50][51][52][53][54][55]