OBITUARY: DR RONALD SANDISON

Shetland-Born Psychiatrist Pioneered Use Of LSD To Treat His British Patients

Born: 1 April, 1916, on Shetland.

Died: 18 June, 2010, in Ledbury, Herefordshire, aged 94.

RONALD Sandison was an acclaimed psychiatrist and early pioneer in
the UK of the clinical use of the drug LSD. He believed that, if
administered under strict control, it could help the recovery of
disturbed patients. Later in his career, he abandoned using the drug
in treatment but remained convinced of its benefits.

A fine, much respected clinician, he had a powerful intellect and a
gracious and patient manner. He had a keen understanding for, and
empathy with, his often troubled patients. He was a firm believer in
encouraging patients to listen to music and relax with other forms of art.

Despite leaving the islands at an early age, Sandison always
considered himself a Shetlander: his father's family stretched back
to the 15th century. He returned most summers for a holiday and in
1969 bought a rundown cottage that he enjoyed converting and
modernising. In 1975, he accepted the post of resident psychiatrist
on Shetland. It was a post he filled with much distinction and which
he greatly enjoyed.

Ronald Arthur Sandison was born in the Shetland Islands but his
father soon after his birth was transferred to London to supervise
the department that managed ancient monuments in Britain. He attended
King's College School, Wimbledon, and then won a scholarship to read
medicine at King's College Hospital in London. He qualified in 1940
and joined the RAF, but he was much involved carrying out research at
the physiological laboratory at Farnborough.

Prior to the D-Day invasion, Sandison toured RAF stations, advising
the pilots on breathing oxygen at high altitudes. In 1946, he was
demobbed in the rank of wing commander.

Rather than return to medical practice or research, he decided to
study psychiatry and qualified in 1948. Three years later, he was
appointed a consultant at Powick Hospital in Worcester. It was a huge
establishment - with up to 1,000 patients - and in a sorry state.
"The amenities were bleak in the extreme," he later wrote. The rooms
were overcrowded and the treatment sadly out of date. By dint of his
own hard work and the respect he enjoyed from his colleagues, the
hospital gained an international reputation for its care and modern
methods of treatment. Dr Sandison also founded a branch of the
Samaritans in Worcester.

In 1952, Sandison had visited Switzerland, where colleagues were
researching the clinical uses of LSD. He brought back to Powick some
LSD which he administered to selected patients. The doses he gave
were small and were principally used to explore the patients'
subconscious - they were only given to patients where other treatment
and counselling had failed.

It was, nonetheless, a controversial move and was the subject of an
investigative and somewhat critical programme on the BBC.

His pioneering work was to be continued at Powick, but starting in
1964, Sandison worked for a decade in Southampton University, where
he developed group therapy meetings for schizophrenics and was
involved in the creation of the university's medical school.

In 1975, Sandison returned to work in Shetland. He had had lengthy
discussions with the local health board, arguing that it was more
practical (and cheaper) to set up a clinic with him in charge rather
than fly their psychiatric patients down to Aberdeen for treatment.
His work on Shetland branched out to assisting many areas of the
community. Sandison helped his patients through many difficult
periods in their lives and founded centres for those with alcohol
problems and advised young people on family panning.

His contribution to advancing health care in his professional years
on Shetland was considerable and he became a popular and respected
member of the community.

Sandison spent the last years of his professional career in London
working on various projects. He established a successful private
practice at St Luke's Hospital and acted as consultant to the Bishop
of London and his clergy. He retired to Hertfordshire in 1992.

Malcolm Pines, in his introduction to Sandison's autobiography (A
Century of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Group Analysis: a Search for
Integration), extolled his career.

"Ronnie has drawn on his life experience with his excellent memory
and looks over his more than half century of experience in psychiatry
and psychotherapy. He draws us into the world as he found it, and
changed it," he wrote.

Sandison, a man of confirmed Christian faith, was a keen sailor and
walker. He was thrice married. With his first wife, Evelyn Oppen, he
had two sons That and his second marriage in 1965, to Margaret
Godfrey, ended in divorce. In 1982, he married Beth Almond, who survives him.