Simon Wessely - Training and Interests

Training and Interests

After attending King Edward VII School in Sheffield from 1968 to 1975, Wessely studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (BA 1978), University College, Oxford (BM BCh 1981), and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (MSc 1989). In 1993 the University of London conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Medicine.

Wessely completed a medical rotation in Newcastle. After attaining medical membership he studied psychiatry (his primary interest) at the Maudsley in 1984. His 1993 doctoral thesis was on the relationship between crime and schizophrenia. Post-doctoral studies included a year at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and a year studying epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In 1999 he was elected fellow of the U.K. Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci).

Wessely's main research interests lie in the "grey areas" between medicine and psychiatry, clinical epidemiology and military health. His first paper was entitled "Dementia and Mrs. Thatcher", since then he has published over 600 papers on subjects including epidemiology, post traumatic stress, medicine and law, history of psychiatry, chronic pain, somatisation, Gulf War illness, chemical and biological terrorism and deliberate self-harm. He has published most widely on aspects of chronic fatigue syndrome, including its aetiology, history, psychology, immunology, sociology, epidemiology and treatment.

In private life, Wessely is married and has two sons. His interests include skiing and history, and he cycled annually from London to Paris between 2006 and 2012, to raise money for veterans' charities.