Name a more iconic duo … we’ll wait!
This is Associate Professor Shanthi Sarma and Advanced Peer Worker Titta Gigante.
They’ve worked together for 14 years in mental healthcare at Gold Coast Health, applying their differing styles of skills and experience to deliver safe, world-class mental healthcare.
Titta brings lived experience as an Advanced Peer Worker whilst A/Prof Sarma, a psychiatrist and Director of Neurostimulation and Mood Disorders, applies her clinical expertise.
Together, they have had a big impact on the field of mental health – at our health service and beyond.
They share a passion for de-stigmatising Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), a treatment that has changed the lives of many patients at Gold Coast Health.
The series of powerful videos they produced featuring stories from Gold Coast Health ECT patients have received almost 200,000 views on social media and has proven to have changed attitudes towards the treatment.
Through a joint research project recently presented at our Research Grand Rounds, they showed that the videos had a positive impact on perceptions of ECT when shown to nursing and medical students, meaningfully improving their perception of the treatment.
The videos are an example of the way Shanthi and Titta use co-design processes to work together and with stakeholders.
Titta says, “We believe co-design is the answer to a responsive, collaborative and inclusive mental health care. It promotes meaningful and relevant solutions that addresses our community needs.”
You can watch the videos on our YouTube channel: The ECT Journey and ECT – The whole story.
