PROFESSOR MARK WALTERFANG

MBBS Hons PhD DMedSci FRANZCP

Attentus is the clinic of Professor Mark Walterfang – a specialist psychiatrist, providing care to outpatients at his Richmond clinic, and inpatients at private hospitals throughout Melbourne.

A Member of the Faculty of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatrists of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, in addition to the Faculty of Adult Psychiatry and Section of Neuropsychiatry, Professor Walterfang has expertise in general adult psychiatry, consultation-liaison psychiatry, neuropsychiatry and old age psychiatry, including experience in managing organic psychiatric disorders such as the psychiatric aspects of movement and other neurological disorders, dementia, stroke, acquired brain injury, multi-trauma, and pain. Professor Walterfang has extensive experience working in private medical, surgical and rehabilitation inpatient settings. He works closely with admitting specialists as well as nursing and allied health staff to ensure that patients' physical and mental health needs are managed with a coordinated team-based approach.

Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry

Mark consults to patients who are in hospital under the care of other specialists. Mark is available for Psychiatric liaison at the hospitals below:

  • Epworth Richmond & Hawthorn Hospitals

  • Cabrini Malvern & Brighton Hospitals

  • St Vincent’s Private Hospital Fitzroy

He also has accreditation at a small number of other private hospitals - practitioners may contact him for details.

Inpatient Referrals

For doctors wishing for a consult from Professor Walterfang, please contact him through your hospital switchboard with the patient name and location (hospital, ward and bed number), as well as your provider number, if you haven't previously referred. Brief documentation of the referral request in the progress notes is appreciated in order to meet Health Insurance Act requirements.

Patients wishing for input from Professor Walterfang during their hospital stay should discuss this with their admitting doctor.



Outpatient Psychiatry

Professor Walterfang has practised for more than 20 years at the Richmond Consulting Suites, a large group of medical suites situated adjacent to the Melbourne Clinic, in Richmond. He has extensive experience in high-prevalence disorders, management of childhood trauma, psychiatric illness arising out of general medical, neurological and neurodegenerative disorders, and post-traumatic illness arising out of motor vehicle and work-related accidents. He consults at his rooms two days per week.

Outpatient Referrals

As a medical specialist, Professor Walterfang requires referrals from a medical practitioner (general practitioner or other specialist). These will generally be reviewed for appropriateness and ensuring the best experience and journey for the patient - which may not be with Professor Walterfang.

At present, we are currently oversubscribed and unable to take on new referrals. We are happy to suggest alternative referral pathways if required.

About Mark Walterfang

Professor Mark Walterfang graduated in medicine from University of Queensland with honours in 1993, and completed his Fellowship of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) in 2000. He has worked since this time as a staff specialist at the Neuropsychiatry Unit of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and became an Professor of Neuropsychiatry in 2018. He completed his PhD in 2011, which was awarded the University of Melbourne's Chancellors' Prize for the PhD thesis and the Dean of Medicine’s Prize. In 2016 he was appointed to the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health as an Honorary Professor and in 2023 as an adjunct Professor at Edith Cowan University. In 2023 he also completed a Second research doctorate (Doctorate of Medical Science) in biomarkers in neurometabolic disorders. He has published more than 200 Medline-indexed scientific papers, and numerous book chapters in the fields of psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, neurology, metabolic medicine, and neuroimaging, including in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. He is one of the few Australians to author a chapter in the world's largest and most respected psychiatric reference textbook, Kapan & Sadock's Comprehensive Psychiatry.

Professor Walterfang has significant experience in clinical neuropsychiatry, having managed both inpatients and outpatients at the Neuropsychiatry Unit at Royal Melbourne Hospital since 2000. This is an eight-bed inpatient unit that admits patients from across Victoria, and occasionally interstate and overseas, to undertake gold-standard neuropsychiatric assessments on complex patients with a wide range of conditions including neurodegenerative disorders, movement disorders, early-onset dementia, post-infective and post-traumatic organic brain syndromes, somatoform disorders, movement disorders (including Parkinson’s disease and Huntington disease) and other cognitive disorders.

He has worked in the field of acquired brain injury at an inpatient and outpatient level for more than 15 years, and is a member of the Expert Committee for Connectivity, an MRFF-funded organisation aiming to increase awareness of concussion and traumatic brain injury in Australia. He has also worked for more than 10 years with Parkinson’s disease patients, particularly those undergoing deep-brain stimulation surgery, and is experienced in managing psychiatric aspects of the disease. He has for more than 20 years managed complex patients with Huntington disease (HD) at the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s HD clinic, the world’s oldest clinic of its type.

Professor Walterfang is experienced in undertaking baseline cognitive assessments, managing secondary psychiatric syndromes in neurological disorders, and in understanding the role of cognition in psychiatric and neurological illness. He has particular interest and expertise in the use of neuroimaging to aid in the diagnosis of complex neuropsychiatric disorders.

He has practised at an outpatient level in his Richmond Rooms as a general adult psychiatrist and neuropsychiatrist since 2001, and has been an accredited visiting specialist at the Epworth group of Hospitals since 2008 and at the Cabrini group of Hospitals since 2011.

In the private hospital setting, he has significant experience in the management of acquired brain injury, multi-trauma, oncology, general neurology, rehabilitation, metabolic disorders and pain disorders. He is a member of the Faculties of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry and Adult Psychiatry and a member of the Section of Neuropsychiatry of the RANZCP. He is a member of the British and American Neuropsychiatric Associations, the International Neuropsychiatric Association, the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (US), Society for Inherited and Metabolic Disease, Society for the study of Inborn Errors of Metabolism, the Human Genetics Society of Australia, the Movement Disorders Society and the International Brain Injury Association.