Junta editorial

Dr Soumitra Shankar Datta is a senior consultant psychiatrist working in the Department of Palliative Care and Psycho-oncology of Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata, India and a visiting research associate for UCL EGA Institute for Women Health at the University College London. After his MBBS, he obtained DPM, MD and DNB degrees in psychiatry from Christian Medical College, Vellore and trained as a child psychiatrist in the UK. Dr Datta has a Certificate of Completion of Training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry from the UK (CCT). Prior to joining Tata Medical Centre, he worked as a substantive consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist in Kings College Hospital, London and The Maudsley Hospital, London. He was awarded the Donald Cohen Fellowship by the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professionals in 2008.

In 2014, Dr Datta was awarded the UCL International Teaching Excellence Bursary by the University College London to develop Communication skills training for oncology clinicians.

Dr Datta leads the psycho-oncology service in Tata Medical Center that provides psychological support for newly diagnosed patients with cancer, treats psychiatric comorbidties as depression, procedural anxiety and other conditions in cancer patients and their family members and offers training to staff on psycho-oncology. The department offers comprehensive assessment and neuropsychological testing for patients with brain tumours. Dr Datta is the Principal Investigator for several research projects in the area of depression/body image in cancer, doctor patient relationships in oncology, decision making in oncology, stigma in cancer and socio-psychological factors associated with access to care for cancer patients. Dr Datta is a lead reviewer for Cochrane Collaboration and has authored several cochrane reviews.