Prof. Patrick McGorry (Mental Health Ambassador)

Professor Patrick McGorry was the 2010 Australian of the Year. Not bad for a bloke born in Ireland. After four years of studying general medicine in the early 80s, Pat could see the mentally ill were getting 'an extremely raw deal,' so he turned his focus to psychiatry. In those days patients were locked up and it was 'a century behind the rest of health care'. He believes the mentally ill still get a raw deal, but thanks to Pat's involvement in Headspace and Orygen, things are slowly improving.