David Sturgeon Obituary
My friend and former colleague David Sturgeon, who has died aged 76, was a lecturer in psychiatry for many years at the Middlesex Hospital in central London, where he encouraged generations of medical students to introduce a psychotherapeutic approach to their patient care.
He was known for his great empathy and understanding. In later years he moved away from his focus on the academic side of his career to become a full-time consultant psychiatrist at University College Hospital (UCH) in London, where he helped survivors of the 1987 King’s Cross fire, the 1999 Admiral Duncan pub bombing and the 7 July 2005 London bombings.
He later returned to academia, this time as a consultant, where he led UCL’s student psychological and counselling services, where he played a crucial role in providing therapeutic support.
David was born in Northenden, Greater Manchester, the son of Alex, an RAF officer, and Jean, a housewife. His father’s work meant that he had a peripatetic childhood, and he was educated first at Stamford School in Lincolnshire and then at Hipperholme Grammar School in Halifax, West Yorkshire. He trained as a medical doctor at St Peter’s College, Oxford, where he developed an interest in music, drama and mime.
In 1971 he moved to UCH to train as a psychiatrist, becoming a lecturer at Middlesex Hospital in 1975 and a senior lecturer in 1977. In 1985 he moved to UCH to work as a consultant psychiatrist and in 2006 he joined the student psychology and counselling team.
Over the years, David had a profound impact on the lives of many people, including the journalist and broadcaster Alastair Campbell, a patient for 20 years, who often expressed his gratitude and dedicated two books to him. Colleagues, as well as patients, enjoyed his refusal to bow to pieties; he loved to say the unsayable and enjoyed the reaction.
David met Liz Lederman through mutual friends in Hampstead, north London, and they married in 1975. Their home in Kentish Town, north-west London, was a social hub for all generations, as was their mill cottage on the Yorkshire Moors. It was there, just as he was retiring, that he suffered a catastrophic fall in July last year.
He faced his subsequent paralysis with a characteristic biting wit and patience. He never lost his devilish sense of humor, nor his expressionless manner of speech. He was gifted with a generous appreciation of human frailty and a deep knowledge of what mattered in life and what one had to learn from it.
He is survived by Liz, their two daughters, Kate and Natasha, and three grandchildren, Iris, Zac and Theo.