World Schizophrenia Day 2024

“Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.”

The quote was rightly delivered by Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States of America. Psychiatric illnesses, though presently requiring greater understanding, are as important to manage as that we would a physical illness, because it’s the scars we can’t see might be the scars that hurt the most.

Among the psychiatric illnesses, one of the more debilitating ones is schizophrenia. A person losing his sense of reality, and the people around him watch, unable to help him or her. The person experiences hallucinations, commonly auditory, and delusions which completely takes the ability of the person to function normally. Scary isn’t it? Everything seemed bleak about the modality of treatment until the era of today. Before, it was the least understood condtion, and hence people were institutionalized and segregated. Outcast. But now, we now understand the pathophysiology of schizophrenia better, and we are better equipped in the therapeutics circle. Multiple modalities of treatment, pharmacological and psychosocial, exist now to mostly(and even completely) alleviate schizophrenia.

A doctor not just treats, but also educates. As part of World Schizophrenia Day 2024, celebrated on 24th May every year, the ESIC Medical College, Bengaluru has done a splendid job in educating the general public about schizophrenia, which is one of the lesser-known subjects to the public. The education was done in the form of a roleplay by the students themselves. The roleplay was about a person developing schizophrenia, how the people around him react, and how we are supposed to deal with someone getting schizophrenia, and the students definitely showed it comprehensively.

Roleplay consisted of the following characters

Schizophrenia patient – Played by Sumukha Chetan C(3rd year)
Patient’s wife – Played by Rhea M(2nd year)
Patient’s brother – Played by Neeraj Kashyap HJ(3rd year)
Patient’s sister-in-law – Played by Janani P(3rd year)
Purohit – Played by Rishab Raghavendra(2nd year)
Black Magic Sorcerer – Played by Dhanush M(3rd year)
Social worker – Played by Bilva Teja(3rd year)
Doctor – Played by Bhargavram(3rd year)

All of this, being telecasted on the news, was followed by further explanation of the day and the disease by the honorable Dean Dr Sandhya R, and the psychiatry department consisting of the head of department Dr Chandrashekhar and Dr Dhananjay.

Hats off to the psychiatry department and all the students of the roleplay!

Pictures of the roleplay shown below. Picture credits: Goutham R Pillai(3rd year) and Durga Prasad S(3rd year).