Throughout his career, Canada-based Trinidadian psychiatrist and researcher Dr Badri Rickhi has made big steps in integrative medicine and is committed to ensuring that issues of mental health do not remain unaddressed.
As the research chair of the Canadian Institute of Natural and Integrative Medicine and the associate clinical professor of medicine at the University of Calgary, Rickhi says if mental illnesses continue to be ignored, this could result in serious social and economic costs.
Talking to the T&T Guardian via e-mail last week, the award-winning psychiatrist explained how he found himself in that field. Rickhi was born in Chaguanas before his family moved to Pasea Village, Tunapuna.
He attended St Mary's College in Port-of-Spain before completing pre-med qualifications at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona campus. He later returned to T&T and enrolled himself in UWI St Augustine's medical programme.
But his eyes weren't always set on psychiatry.
"Growing up and in early high school, I wanted to join the Royal Air Force. However, this did not fit with the plans of my father. He wanted his sons to have a profession that could be long-lasting and in his terms 'worthwhile.' It was during the final years of high school that I decided to consider medicine."
He graduated in 1974 and was later accepted to the University of Toronto to complete a specialist fellowship programme in psychiatry.
Between 1987 and 1993, while working as the deputy director of the psychiatry department at the Calgary General Hospital, Rickhi was recognised by the World Heath Organisation (WHO) for excellence in epidemiology, forensic and mood disorders. This afforded him the opportunity to work with the WHO on research projects on mental health medicine, particularly in developing countries.
"At that time," he said, "Dr Julio Arboleda Florez, a very forward WHO thinker, asked my opinion about where I thought medicine was going to be heading in the future. I felt it was in the area of complementary medicine and he and other members of WHO encouraged me to explore these areas further."
He later began studies in traditional Chinese, Ayurvedic and Tibetan medicine as well as electronic homeopathy. In 2004 and 2005, as a member of the Bravewell Fellowship Advisory Committee, Rickhi worked on the development of a blueprint for the implementation of integrative health care clinics in conventional medical settings.
Asked to explain integrative health care, Rickhi described it as "the union of different paradigms of conventional and other medical therapies."
He said non-conventional therapy looked at physical and spiritual aspects of a person as a well as mind function. It also deals with the concept that the body has the potential to heal itself if it is given the opportunity to do so.
"However, preventative medicine deals with helping the person to understand from all aspects of themselves, why they became ill and how to improve or maintain their future quality of life. By blending these two concepts, it allows healthcare systems to provide the most appropriate therapy at the most appropriate time for the most appropriate reasons."
In 2009, Rickhi was awarded with the Dr Rogers Prize for excellence in complementary and alternative medicine. The prize is awarded every two years to a Canadian considered to be a leader and pioneer in integrative medicine.
As a philanthropist, he also works closely with the Sri Narayani Hospital and Research Centre in Malaikodi, South India which provides food and medical service to over 100,000 underprivileged rural citizens each month. He said a neurosurgical unit is currently being constructed at the centre.
The 67-year-old said of all medical disciplines, psychiatry continues to receive the least funding and developmental encouragement.
He said: "We ignore the fact that every medical illness involves human suffering. This suffering not only affects the person who is involved but also family and friends. Mental health issues, which are unaddressed, create significant costs to society."
He said data confirms that issues of mental health are increasing and that over the next decade, the cost of managing mental health will be second only to the cost of cancer management. He said while he has no direct communication with leaders in psychiatry in T&T, there seemed to be "well-intentioned developments" for mental health in the country. He added that it could be improved by providing political and financial support to local psychiatrists so they can continue their work.
Although he currently resides in Canada, Rickhi says his greatest gift is being born in Trinidad since "it has provided me not only with an attitude, but a gift of looking at life in a way that cannot be replicated by any other culture."
