Keith Hawton

Recollecting Oxford Medicine: Oral Histories

Derek Hockaday interviews Keith Hawton, consultant psychiatrist and professor of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, 19 September 2014. Topics discussed include: (00:00:15) why Hawton chose Cambridge, not Oxford, and pre-clinical training; (00:01:28) journey into medicine through experimental psychology; (00:04:20) Oxford Medical School and clinical student years; (00:08:30) surgical house job; (00:10:14) post house job roles, coinciding with psychiatric training scheme, 1971, and research; (00:12:36) relationship between physical and mental illness; (00:15:44) Oxford Department of Psychiatry and Michael Gelder; (00:17:55) MD thesis topic on self harm and suicide research at the Barnes unit; (00:19:35) work of colleagues; (00:23:40) roles in the Department of Psychiatry since 1974; (00:25:58) clinical tutoring and teaching; (00:28:50) Oxbridge student suicides in the 1950s; (00:31:50) suicide and pseudocide; (00:35:41) time abroad in the Netherlands and New Zealand; (00:38:10) pathogenesis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; (00:40:40) national meetings and roles in national groups; (00:42:20) writing and editing; (00:45:57) change in psychiatric awareness from start of career to present day; (00:50:35) current local psychiatric services; (00:54:19) sport.