Prof Gregory Carter

Prof Gregory Carter (MBBS, FRANZCP, Cert Child Psych, PhD) Acting Director and Senior Staff Specialist

Overview

Professor Carter has worked at the Calvary Mater Newcastle (CMN) from 1985 to 1987 and from 1991 to the present. He wants to improve clinical outcomes and service provision for medically ill patients with co-morbid Mental Illness and psychological distress.

Professor Carter is currently the Senior Staff Specialist and A/Director of Consultation Liaison Psychiatry, Calvary Mater Newcastle, Waratah; and Conjoint Professor Faculty of Health and Medicine, University of Newcastle. He leads the Psycho-Oncology Service at Calvary Mater Newcastle and is a Principal Researcher in the Centre for Brain and Mental Health Research Priority Research Centre at the University of Newcastle. He is a member of the Hunter Cancer Research Alliance (HCRA); a Chief Investigator for the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Suicide Prevention (CRESP 2.0); Chair for the RANZCP Clinical Practice Guidelines for Deliberate Self-Harm and a member of the National Suicide Prevention Taskforce Expert Advisory Group.

He is member of: the RANZCP (Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists), the SMHR (Society for Mental Health Research), the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Strategic Planning Group (DBT-SPG University of Washington), the AAS (American Academy of Suicidology), the IASR (International Association of Suicide Researchers) and the DEPRESSD-PHQ international research group.

Clinical Trials

Professor Carter has extensive experience in running and evaluating large scale clinical trials with vulnerable patients (suicidal and depressed) aimed at reducing suicidal behaviour and/or depression. He has conducted interventional studies (RCTs) aimed at reduction of suicide attempts (Postcards from the EDge, Postcards in Persia, Hunter DBT Program and the beyondblue’s Way Back Support Service). He is currently involved in three RCTs evaluating: an SMS contact intervention for post hospital-treated self-harm to reduce repetition, the effectiveness of ketamine for treatment-resistant depression and N-Acetyl-Cysteine for methamphetamine dependence.

Service Evaluation and Clinical Practice Change

He has also conducted service evaluation studies of hospital services for DSH (overdose) in Australia and the UK, epidemiological studies of suicide and suicidal behaviour in Australia, and an evaluation of the Australian National Youth Suicide Prevention Program. He has developed and published Clinical Practice Guidelines for management of suicidal behaviour for professionals and consumers, undertaken instrument development and evaluation of depression screening in medical illness, and examined the adverse effects of drugs taken in overdose including lithium carbonate, sedating CNS drugs, SSRIs, and Clozapine.

Professor Carter has been involved in the development and evaluation of interventions to reduce repetition of hospital-treated self-harm, which has led to leadership of Clinical Practice Guidelines for the management of deliberate self-harm. These guidelines have altered health policy and clinical practice for an important suicidal behaviour population. (ACEM and RANZCP Guidelines for the Management of Deliberate Self Harm in Young People; Summary Australian and New Zealand clinical practice guideline for the management of adult deliberate self-harm, Australasian Psychiatry; RANZCP Clinical Practice Guideline for the management of adult deliberate self-harm; and RANZCP Clinical Practice Guideline for the management of deliberate self-harm). He has also been involved in the publication of more than 25 systematic reviews, which have influenced policy and clinical practice in several areas, especially clinical interventions and depression screening instrument selection. He has helped to develop a predictive instrument for use in ICUs to assist with organ transplantation, which has been adopted for use in Australian hospitals.

Research training

He has supervised (and continues to supervise) Research Higher Degree and medical students from universities and Scholarly Projects for psychiatry registrars from the RANZCP.

Department

Consultation Liaison Psychiatry

Research Areas

Suicide and suicidal behaviours, Depression screening am measurement in the medically ill, Delirium, Somatisation and abdominal pain, Psycho-Oncology, Psychopharmacology, Organ donation

Publications / Achievements

Peer reviewed publications

With an H-index of 41, > 5670 (Google Scholar 03/2020), he has published over 150 peer reviewed articles across a range of prominent journals such as BMJ, BMJ Open, British Journal of Psychiatry, Journal Affective Disorders, Stroke, Critical Care Medicine, Cancer Treatment Reviews and Journal Psychosomatic Research, as well as in suicide specific journals such as Archives of Suicide Research, Crisis, Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior.

More information about Prof Carter’s academic achievements and publications can be found here:

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8180-1798

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