Salam Hussain

Dr. Salam Hussain serves as Adjunct Associate Professor in Psychiatry at the UWA Medical School and Adjunct Senior Clinical Lecturer at the School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia. He earned his MBChB from Iraq, holds Australian Medical Council certification, Fellowship of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (FRANZCP), and International Fellowship of the American Psychiatric Association (IFAPA). Trained in psychiatry in Western Australia, his career includes roles as Consultant Psychiatrist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Consultation Liaison Psychiatry and Emergency Psychiatry, and Lead Clinician for the Neuromodulation unit in the Day Procedure Unit. He chairs the RANZCP's Binational Committee for the Section of Electroconvulsive Therapy and Neurostimulation.

Salam Hussain's research focuses on neuromodulation techniques—electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)—investigating their efficacy and side effects for treatment-resistant mood and anxiety disorders, psychosis, psychopharmacology, mental health in the medically ill, and neuropsychiatric complications of neurological disorders. Current projects include comparing ECT electrode placements (LART, RUL UB, BT) via PET scans and transitioning maintenance ECT patients to tDCS. He has significantly impacted the field through co-authoring RANZCP professional practice guidelines for ketamine (2025), rTMS administration (2024), ECT (2019), and publications such as "Prescribing electroconvulsive therapy for depression: Not as simple as it used to be" (2023), "Electroconvulsive Therapy Credentialing for Psychiatrists—Review of Required Standards Across States and Territories in Australia" (2024), "Facilitating routine data collection to improve clinical quality and research in Interventional Psychiatry: The CARE Network" (2024), "The Impact of COVID-19 on Electroconvulsive Therapy" (2021), and "Neuromodulation: the attitudes, the evidence and the trends" (2017). Furthermore, he conducts regular lectures for first-year trainee psychiatrists in Western Australia's postgraduate training program and delivers courses on emergency psychiatry and aggression management to emergency physicians and GPs in regional Western Australia, including Geraldton, Northam, and Esperance.

Professional Email: salam.hussain@uwa.edu.au