Howard Liu, MD, was recognized as an Honorary Fellow at the World Psychiatric Association World Congress in Stockholm, Sweden in September, during his sixth year as co-chair of the WPA’s Medical Student Special Interest Group.
Dr. Liu, Chair of the UNMC Department of Psychiatry, launched the WPA Medical Student SIG in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in partnership with Muhammad Waqar Azeem, MD, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Sidra Medicine / Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar. The initiative was a key priority of WPA Past President, Afzal Javed, MD, from 2020-2023, and it was continued under WPA Past President, Danuta Wasserman, MD, from 2023-2026. The Medical Student SIG will continue under WPA President Thomas Schulze, MD, from 2026-2029.
From 2022 to 2026, Dr. Liu led a team of international psychiatry faculty and WPA leaders in organizing global medical student mentorship sessions at the WPA World Congress meetings. These sessions took place in Bangkok, Vienna, Mexico City, Prague and, most recently in Stockholm.
In each workshop, the WPA Medical Student SIG partnered with local psychiatrists and medical students to organize the sessions and ensure that they included local mentors. The sessions include brief talks on mentorship principles and small-group breakouts to answer specific questions.
Said Dr. Azeem, “Over the last six years, Dr. Liu played an instrumental role in the WPA flagship activities of the Medical Student SIG. We have had excellent participation from medical students and stakeholders.”
Nora Orrevall Granberg, a 2026 Swedish medical student at Karolinska Institute and co-organizer, said the WPA medical student mentorship session was valuable for career guidance and support.
She is the founder and vice president of the Nordic American Physicians Association, which continues to foster mentoring relationships between Swedish medical students and U.S. physicians.
The Medical Student SIG also organizes a WPA Medical Student Essay Competition each year. Medical students from around the world can enter the competition, and participation has steadily grown from 32 countries in 2022 to 48 countries spanning 6 continents and 111 medical schools in 2026.
This year’s winners were from Lebanon and the U.S. Christine Kim, the American winner and a senior medical student at Harvard Medical School, said the essay competition was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on creative ways to improve mental health worldwide.
Dr. Liu said he was enthusiastic about the value of international collaboration. He got involved with the WPA when Dr. Azeem contacted him as a past president of the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry (ADMSEP) in the U.S.
“As we launched the WPA Medical Student SIG, I’ve had the privilege of learning from brilliant students and faculty from around the world,” Dr. Liu said. “Over the last six years, I’ve learned that some common challenges include limited resources, stigma, burnout, and a lack of timely career advice. Mentorship can help bridge those gaps, and the students are teaching us valuable insights on how they want the field to evolve to stay relevant.”
This year’s World Congress of Psychiatry theme was “Guided by Compassion, Grounded in Science: Psychiatry for Our Time: The Future of Psychiatry is Shaped by Collaboration, Compassion, and Scientific Progress.” The conference’s agenda focused on balancing clinical and scientific breakthroughs with empathetic, ethical, and practical patient care. More than 4,000 mental health professionals from 123 countries attended.