Enoka Wickramasinghe

Biography

Enoka obtained her MBBS in 2002 from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo and started her carrier as a Medical Officer of Mental Health in Weligama, in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. She developed a passion for public health and promoting mental health of people after actively working for the affected communities post-tsunami in 2004, and established the Mental Health Unit at District Hospital Weligama in 2005 with the support of Belgium Army. Her masters in Community Medicine was on parenting skills and associated factors. Thereafter, she completed the MD in Community Medicine at the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo.

Her doctoral degree was on work stress and health problems among teachers in Colombo District of Sri Lanka, supervised by Professor Rohini Senevirathne and Dr Nalika Gunawardena. Ministry of Health of Sri Lanka funded her doctoral degree as educator stress, and health problems are global public health concerns. Moving along her special interest in promoting mental health, Enoka took the lead on developing a five-day basic counselling skills training module for nursing officers in Sri Lanka while she worked at Health Promotion Bureau of Sri Lanka in 2016.

She joined Research Institute for Primary Care and Health Sciences as a post-doctoral exchange researcher under the supervision of Professor Athula Sumathipala and Professor Christian Mallen in September 2018 for one year to obtain the overseas training to become a Consultant in Community Medicine. While at Keele, she was involved in reviewing effective interventions for work stress in healthcare workers to facilitate the development of health and wellbeing strategy of Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and was an active member of the EDI wellbeing group of the Research Institute for Primary Care & Health Sciences. Dr Wickramasinghe is interested in promoting occupational health and wellbeing when she resumes duty as a board certified Consultant Community Physician in the Ministry of Health of Sri Lanka this September. She is keen on global collaborative research on psychosocial wellbeing of working populations.