Dr Christopher Kowalski

Chris is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist working in both private practice and the NHS. He trained at Cambridge University and University College London and completed training in psychiatry in North London – specialising in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Tavistock Clinic. Here he gained experience across a broad range of mental health services, including general child and adolescent mental health services, neurodevelopmental services, fostering and adoption services, adolescent inpatient care, perinatal mental health, parenting assessments, and gender identity services.

Chris undertook a Clinical Fellowship at the University of Toronto in 2017, where he worked at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in youth urgent care and consultation. During this time, he received the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry award for Most Accomplished Clinical Fellow.

Since 2021, Chris has worked within an NHS specialist neurodevelopmental service assessing and treating children and young people with autism spectrum disorder and ADHD.

He has a longstanding interest in medical education, with a particular focus on simulation-based learning, interprofessional training, and mental health education. He was shortlisted for Psychiatric Educator of the Year at the Royal College of Psychiatrists Awards 2023.

Publications

Book chapters

Kowalski, C., Attoe, C. (2020). Contemporary context and future directions in mental health education. In: Nestel D, Reedy G, McKenna L, Gough S (eds). Clinical Education for the Health Professions: Theory and Practice. Springer.

Peer-reviewed articles

Naismith, L.M., Kowalski, C., Soklaridis, S., Kelly, A., Walsh, C.M. (2019). Participant perspectives on the contributions of physical, psychological, and sociological fidelity to learning in interprofessional mental health simulation. Simulation in Healthcare, 15(3):141–146.

Piette, A. E., Attoe, C., Humphreys, R., Cross, S., & Kowalski, C. (2018). Interprofessional simulation training for community mental health teams: Findings from a mixed methods study. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 32(6):762–770.

Kelly, A., McDiarmid, E., Jindani, F., Fernando, A., Naismith, L., Nirula L., Kowalski, C. (2018). Lessons learned: Implementing UK-developed interprofessional simulation training courses in a Canadian setting. Academic Psychiatry, 42(5):605–612.

Kowalski, C., Attoe, C., Ekdawi, I., Parry, C., Phillips, S., & Cross, S. (2017).Interprofessional simulation training to promote working with families and networks in mental health services. Academic Psychiatry, 42(5):659–663.

Kowalski, C. & Conn, R. (2017). Medical students’ perceptions of the use of feature films to teach the Mental State Examination. BMJ Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning, 3:122–123.

Kowalski, C. & Bhalla, R. (2015). Viewing the Disney movie Frozen through a psychodynamic lens. Journal of Medical Humanities, 39(2):145–150.

Kowalski, C. & Sathanandan, S. (2015). The use of simulation to develop advanced communication skills relevant to psychiatry. BMJ Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning, 1:29–32.

Editorials

Kowalski, C. & Leonard, O. (2015). Growing trends in the pursuit of muscularity. British Journal of General Practice, 65(641):626–627.

Commentaries

Attoe, C., Kowalski, C., Fernando, A., Cross, S. (2016). Integrating mental health simulation into routine healthcare education. The Lancet Psychiatry, 3(8):702–703.