Editorial February 2006

(for greater interest and pleasure, I hope, do click onto the underlined hyperlinks as you reach them. PGW)

Next month, upon entering my 80th year, I shall not be seeking to renew my specialist approval under S12/2 (MHA 1983).

I have been proud to have held approval since the inception of the 1959 Act; for longer, and to a more advanced age possibly, than any other psychiatrist in the London area? One of my first tasks as consultant was to apply the requirements of the original Mental Health Act (1959) which had just come into force, and to "regrade" the vast majority of my allotted hospital patients, all of them until then compulsorily detained, to the new "informal" status.

We remaining active members of SCP are, in the main, Canutes from a past era who from time to time make futile efforts to stem the advancing tide of the Future. In response to the Chairman's Address, one scpnet.com correspondent wrote last month: - - What was making me furious was the reference in the last sentence in Dr Dermot Ward's address about the decisions being made by those less qualified than the consultant, to overule his or her decision; this has been going on for a long time, seems to be getting worse and should be resisted. Are the consultants no longer the Responsible Medical Officers? It seems to me that it is all part of the plan by the present Government to down-grade consultants throughout the NHS. Needs further discussion - - DMcN

I am grateful to our past Chairman, Dr Haslam, for kindly supplying me with a copy of a short history of the Society (extracts from the SCP Newsletter of Winter 1976) re-published now together with a letter from Dr Richard Crockett of the Ingrebourne Centre in Essex (April 1977) to Dr Freeman (? Prof. Hugh Freeman). These are valuable summaries of the Society from its earliest days, and of its predecessor the Group for the Representation of the Views of Clinical Psychiatrists (GRVCP). Verily, a trip down memory lane! I worked in Essex earlier and knew Richard Crocket and Hugh Freeman slightly in those far off days. Members old and young will find all this fascinating reading.

But for this Editorial I want to dredge up memories from an even earlier era in the mists of time, my first experience of hospital psychiatry as a medical student, now re-surfacing and becoming topical once again.

LSD PAST AND FUTURE? (LSD inventor Albert Hofmann celebrates 100th birthday· Battle ahead for approval and funding of UK studies)

I was inspired to take up psychiatry (then, as now, not a popular option for medical students) by the positive experience of a student holiday residency at Powick Hospital, Worcester, formerly the 'Worcester County Pauper and Lunatic Asylum', where the young Elgar was 'bandmaster' of the attendants band.

In the early '50s Powick, under the welcoming Dr Arthur Spencer, who recruited students from Middlesex Hospital, was a pioneering centre for research into medical use of LSD (more of my fellow students opted instead for gynae and Guinness in Dublin).

This was a heady time of energetic, indeed heroic, treatment of severe psychosis, with ECT (pushed to the limit in some hospitals), deep insulin therapy, and the beginnings of exploration of new psychotropic drugs, including their use for abreaction. There was excitement there about largactil, which alone has stood the test of time, and about hoped for benefits with LSD, whose inventor Albert Hofmann achieved his century last month, inducing a flurry of media interest. On the TV news an image of the old Powick Hospital flashed across the screen, and The Guardian Jan 11th carried an article Psychiatrist calls for end to 30-year taboo over use of LSD as a medical treatment.

Searching Google, I was pleased to find on the Net Betty Grover Eisner's extensive Remembrances of LSD therapy past, which I commend to SCP's readers old and young. Maybe reading this will prompt some other retired psychiatrists to share their memories with SCPNET?

Living on Death Row & Dignitas in Zurich

The Guardian January 28 drew attention to the q & a Blog "Meet Vernon" which allows well wishers (and others) to converse with Vernon Lee Evans, who may be in the last fortnight of his life. It is likely that a majority of our readers are opposed to the Death Penalty abroad and may be interested to follow this dialogue, and also the links on this unusual campaigning website. The Society and SCPNET have always taken a critical stance about health and justice matters, and a recent article has dealt with Prevention of Prison Suicide.

The topic of legal suicide is once again a prominent topic in the media. The Sunday Times January 29 carried a full thought-provoking discussion of how the ordeal of accompanying their mother to die abroad, necessitated by our laws, has affected the family of a brave, incurably ill doctor.

Comments from medical readers of SCPNET on these interlinked concerns will be welcomed?

PGW

BOOK RECEIVED FOR REVIEW

Would any active hospital clinician like to review for us Dr Cathy Wield's experience of psychiatric hospital treatment for intractable depression with eventual successful cingulotomy and subsequent return to medical practice?
Life after Darkness [Radcliffe, Oxford]

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