Sylvia Mary Reid

Sylvia Reid was born in 1914 into a psychiatric family. Her father was medical superintendent and her mother a senior medical officer of a large mental hospital in the city of Cork, her brother was medical superintendent of a mental hospital in the home counties and her sister was a consultant psychiatrist in Canada. She attended Trinity College, Dublin, where she gained BA in psychology in 1937, MBChB, BAO in 1939 and the DPM (Dublin) with honours, in 1941. She was then appointed to the Royal City of Dublin Hospital, a teaching hospital, where she established one of the first psychiatric out-patient clinics in the city. After moving to the UK she steadily moved up the staffing ladder of the time, obtaining special experience in neurosis and psychotherapy, child guidance and the rehabilitation of schizophrenia, for which she set up a pioneering group of social clubs. In 1951 she was appointed Consultant Psychiatrist at Carlton Hayes Hospital in Leicester. Sylvia was of independent mind and an innovator. She disliked mental hospitals (although after her retirement she told me that she had second thoughts about her former views) and accordingly she established one of the earliest day hospitals away from a main hospital site, as a neurosis unit. Later, she set up and ran a new psychogeriatric unit along progressive lines, where she worked until her retirement.

Sylvia's psychiatric experience and her humane, insightful approach earned the respect and affection of her patients and colleagues. Her dry and quirky sense of humour, which she expressed inside and out the consulting room, made her very good company. From an early age she had to contend with a progressive and painful rheumatoid arthritis that she faced with great courage, never complaining and always taking her full share of the consultant workload of an understaffed hospital, as well as looking after her husband (also a consultant psychiatrist) and five children. In all this she was supported by her happy marriage, a devoted family and a religious faith.

She retired in 1974, having become a Fellow of the College in 1972. She was widowed in 1998. Following a sequence of strokes, she died peacefully in a nursing home on 13 June aged 87 years.