Big interview: Healer of young minds - Dr Mike Shooter, chair, YoungMinds

He was in the final year of medical exams when he suffered what would be the first, and most serious, of many bouts of depression.

His condition was prompted when he was confronted for the first time with a patient who was dying. "He wanted to talk to me before he died and I was terrified. I left it just long enough that he died and I felt incredibly guilty," he recalls.

"I went to the dean of medical studies and said, 'I can't do this'. He said, 'No Mike, you are depressed,' and arranged some treatment."

After a year of treatment Shooter opted to go into child psychiatry. "I chose child psychiatry because you can make more of a difference in children's lives. By putting in interventions at an early stage you can change their whole lives. That's an extraordinary privilege," he says.