Why Virtual Psych Centre?

Aim Our aim is to help patients, physicians and specialists to be better informed about mental health, the neurological system and related topics. About the Psych Centre The virtualpsychcentre.com reaches patients, their families and friends and also psychiatrists, psychologists, and other medical specialists involved in the diagnosis, treatment, and support of people with psychological conditions. It is one of nineteen individual information centres within the Virtual Medical Centre (as shown below). Each centre is complete with information on drugs, disease, treatment, trials, symptoms, support and breaking news. The information posted is Australian specific and updated every 12 hours by a team of medical researchers. Each centre has a Medical Director who works on ensuring the quality of information on the site is maintained and continually enhanced. Dr Nick De Felice is the Medical Director of the Virtual Psych Centre. Dr De Felice was born and bred in Fremantle, accounting for his sad allegiance to the Fremantle Dockers. He completed his medical degree at UWA and after his intern year at Royal Perth Hospital, he started the Family Medicine Program (FMP) in 1983. This included a term with Dr Rosalie Shaw at the Palliative Care Unit at Hollywood Repatriation Hospital, kindling an interest in Palliative Care. As he completed the FMP he worked in general practice at St Andrew's Medical Centre and was a doctor with the Silver Chain Hospice Care Service, the area medical leader for a number of years. He continued this involvement through his years as a registrar in psychiatry, which he began in 1986. As a psychiatry registrar, Dr De Felice developed an interest in transcultural psychiatry, and completed his dissertation by developing a scale to measure acculturation in an Italian population. He also provided a weekly rural psychiatric service to the Geraldton Mental Health Service. With achieving his Fellowship of the RANZCP in 1992, Dr De Felice involvement in palliative care switched to using his psychiatry skills in this area, being the consultant psychiatrist to the Cottage Hospice, PCU, and the consultation/ liaison psychiatrist on the St John of God Hospital (Subiaco) Palliative Care team. Dr De Felice was the Clinical Director of the Psychiatric Emergency Team before starting in full-time private practice as a consultant psychiatrist in West Perth. He continues in private practice, maintaining an abiding interest in psychiatry in Palliative Care, as well as having particular interest in psychiatry in old age, and in Italian patients. He is the Director of ECT at the Perth Clinic, and has a part-time role as the Chief Medical Director of the Perth Clinic. As Medical Director, Dr De Felice is also assisted by an Editorial Advisory Board (EAB).   Editorial Advisory Board The EAB is a group of medical specialists who have formed together in their particular area of medical expertise to contribute comments and feedback on the information that is displayed on the relevant centre. The Virtual Medical Centre's EAB consists of over 1,000 medical professionals. Click on the link below to view the Psych Centre's Editorial Advisory Board.

Virtual Psych Centre Editorial Advisory Board (EAB)

>> view EAB

Accreditations and Associations

Virtual Medical Centre is accredited by the Geneva Switzerland HON International Ethics Code delivering our organisation the highest level of transparency and ethical standards available on the internet today.

Awards

2005 Finalist in the Secrets of Australian IT Innovation Awards
2004 Winner of the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Community Business Partnerships for Western Australia
Finalist in the National Prime Ministers Awards for Small Business
2004 Finalist in the Secrets of Australian IT Innovation Awards
2004 Winner of the Golden Web Awards

Membership

Joining Virtual Medical Centres is COMPLETELY FREE!

You can join for free as:
• A Medical Practitioner – using your provider number
• An Allied Health Professional
• Medical Student
• A General Public Member

Benefits of Joining:

Medical Practitioner
• Access to a medical professional level of information
• View medically sensitive details
• Receive breaking news alerts sent via email
• Complimentary listing on the Health Directory
• Free brochures and posters on request
• Receive a fortnightly e-Newsletters which includes latest news, events and trials

Allied Health Professionals and Medical Students
• Viewing detailed information
• Receive a fortnightly e-Newsletters which includes latest news, events and trials
• Breaking news alerts sent via email
• Free brochures and posters on request

General Public
• See the graphic pictures your doctors see
• View detailed information
• View sensitive information
• Customise the pages to suite you
• Receive a fortnightly e-Newsletters which includes latest news, events and trials
• Breaking news alerts sent via email
• Free brochures and posters on request

Click here NOW to join!

History of Virtual Medical Centre

Dr Andrew Dean, Senior Palliative Care Specialist in WA discovered his patients had a real need for information on cancer. At times of great stress when people have been devastated by bad news of cancer or a life threatening disease, information retention is at its poorest. Often the patient will walk out of the doctor’s room feeling confused and uninformed.

Dr Dean decided to create an intranet site about cancer at his hospital for patients to use. He soon had people from other hospitals asking him for access to the information.

That’s when Dr Dean decided to team up with Pearl Farmer and International Businessman Mr Wayne Hughes to make the information on cancer available to everyone on the World Wide Web and www.virtualcancercentre.com was born.

Virtual Cancer Centre.com went live in August 2001 and got 20,000 hits in the first month. The team was very excited with the traffic back then, almost three years later, an average of 1.2 million page requests are recorded each month!

Partners:

Below are all the partners who have contributed to the success of the Virtual Medical Centre since commencement:

Queries, Questions and Corrections

We appreciate all the industry help we can muster so please send all queries, requests, comments, corrections or suggestions via e-mail to service@virtualmedicalcentre.com where they will be acted upon immediately to 24 hours after receiving the communication!