Dr. Jacob Jordan Lamptey

He was awarded the MB, BCH BAO in 1996 by the University and LRCP (London) in the same year. After two years of internship and SHO appointments in San Fernando General Hospital, Trinidad, West Indies, he entered Edinburgh University of Scotland to specialise in Psychological Medicine. After various hospital appointments in Scotland, he returned to Ghana in 1970 to take up an appointment as a foundation Senior Registrar at the Department of Psychiatry. He was also appointed a lecturer in 1972, rising to become a senior lecturer in1978.

In 1983, he joined the staff of Kingsway Hospital Derby UK as Consultant Psychiatrist. His interest in Community and Social Psychiatry motivated him to establish The Valley View Clinic in 1987 (a private clinic situated at Dzorwulu - a suburb of Accra) This is a unique establishment because the establishment is a general practice with special interest in psychiatry and related problems.

His contributions and achievements include the Vice Presidency of Mental Health Association from1972 to 1983. During the tenure of office he organised students on drug abuse and related problems in most of the secondary schools in Greater Accra and few regional capitals. He also lectured on mental illness and related illness to churches, rotary clubs and many such groups.

In 1992, he was selected to Copenhagen, Denmark to do a course in counselling and psychological treatment of refugees and victims of torture. Subsequently Valley View Clinic became a centre for emotional treatment of refugees and victims of torture. Since 1972, he has been a part time lecturer at the Counselling Department of the University of Ghana, Legon. He has also attended numerous international conferences and presented academic papers on psychiatric topics.

Over the years the Valley View Clinic has treated more than a thousand drug abusers and addicts some of whom have completely recovered and travelled abroad to study and some hold positions of excellence in Ghana. He was able to initiate the concept of Community Psychiatry during his attachment to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital in the early seventies.

During this period, he visited the homes of more than three hundred discharged patients from the hospital. He was therefore able to gain first hand information with regard to the social environment and interactions of his patients with their relatives. The project was funded by DANFA project through the Department of Community and Social Medicine of the University of Ghana.

His research interests have focussed on Social and Community Psychiatry with over ten publications in Medical Journals; the latest being "Psychiatric Illness in Private Specialist Medical Practice: An Evaluation of Workload and Patterns of Consultations in Ten Years (1987 to 1997) in the Ghana Medical Journal 2000 Vol. 34 No. 2 (pages 75-78).

He has submitted for publication in the same journal:

(a) study of Social Adjustments of Discharged Drug Abusers

(b) Case Reports of "Erotomaniac symptoms in six Schizophrenic patients". His current research is the "Social Characteristics of drug addicts". He has just written a textbook entitled " Lecture Notes of Psychological Medicine" which will be on bookshelves anytime from now. He is also presently a Senior Lecturer in Psychopharmacology for postgraduate students pursuing the M Phil. Course in Clinical Psychology at the University of Ghana. His awards include foundation member of the West African College of Physicians, Royal College Centre of Psychiatrics (London).

His future plans include getting donors or NGO's to help in the establishment of a Rehabilitation Centre for drug addicts, most of them find it difficult to adjust in society immediately after discharge from the clinic and also proper integration of psychiatry into general medicine and demystification and de-stigmatisation of mental illness in the community.

Contact Address:

Valley View Clinic
P.O. Box 16 Trade Fair,
La-Accra
Telefax (233-21) 775249

Culled from GhanaClassifieds