Professor Michael Baigent is a psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist. He completed his medical degree at the University of Adelaide in 1985 and has been a specialist in the Department of Psychiatry at Flinders Medical Centre since 1993. He works at Flinders Medical Centre where he is the Head of the the Statewide Gambling Therapy Service, the Centre for Anxiety and Related Disorders and IAPT@flinders. Prof Baigent is also the Head of the Flinders Psychological Therapy Services (FPTS), a general psychiatrist in the mental health service and a senior specialist with the Drug and Alcohol Services of South Australia. He was invited to become the Clinical Advisor in Beyond Blue, which he did from 2006 until joining the Board of Directors in 2011. He has played a key role with Beyond Blue in The National Survey of Mental Health of Doctors and Medical Students (2013) and in the development of many other significant Beyond Blue programs.

Prof Baigent has had national roles in research, policy, service development and innovation. He is a member of the WHO Expert Reference Group on Gambling and Other Behavioural Addictions involved with the inclusion of Gambling Disorder and Gaming Disorder in the new edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD 11). He enjoys his involvement in the medical course, teaching medical students and in preparing trainees to become specialists in psychiatry and addictions. He has also been regularly involved in research on the mental health of medical students. He has an established profile in the area of addictions, overlap of mental illness and substance use disorders and low prevalence disorders, leading to demand for his contribution in international and national conferences, policy, research and leadership in service change.