Dr Ian Berg

Formerly Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Leeds General Infirmary

Ian Berg was born on 16 April 1932 in Sunderland. Sadly, his father died when he was only 4 years old, and his mother then took him and his older sister to Leeds where he spent the rest of his childhood. His medical training was at Leeds Medical School where he qualified MB, ChB (MD in 1965), and in 1956, he went to McGill University in Montreal for psychiatric training. He then worked as a registrar in child psychiatry at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London. Later, he moved to Edinburgh for senior registrar training with Dr Margaret Methven.

He was elected Member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) (Ed) in 1961 and a Fellow in 1979. In 1961, he passed the Royal College of Psychiatrists' membership exam (MRCPsych) and was elected Fellow of the College in 1978.

Ian was appointed Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Leeds General Hospital, High Royds and Scalebor Park hospitals, and Honorary Senior Lecturer at Leeds University in 1966. All his life he was passionately interested in advancing knowledge of his subject through scientific enquiry, but his main interest was in school refusal and truancy.

In the 1970s he teamed up with the chairman of the local juvenile magistrates' court, Roy Hullin, to carry out a trial of sentencing procedure in boys who were persistently truanting. This was the first occasion in which judicial decisions had been subjected to scientific evaluation in this country.

In 1971, Ian proposed that a Child Psychiatry Research Club (now Society) should be founded; the first meeting was held in May 1972. Membership was open to child and adolescent psychiatrists actively engaged in research. It was, and remains, a particular feature of the Society that researchers are encouraged to present not completed research but research at a very early stage or in progress. This means that the input of other members can be taken into account as the research progresses. Ian was elected the first Secretary of the Society and attended meetings regularly until shortly before his death. In addition, he was at various times Secretary and then Academic Secretary of the Child Psychiatry Section of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Academic Secretary for the 1991 London Conference of the European Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He was also a Founder Member of the Association for the Psychiatric Study of Adolescents.

Although his main interest was in research, Ian carried out his clinical and teaching duties in Leeds with great conscientiousness. He was a most thoughtful, reflective, thorough clinician. Naturally, therefore, he was much in demand for medico-legal cases on which he continued to give opinions until just before he died. After his retirement in 1997, he worked as a locum consultant all over the UK, in Dumfries, Aberdeen, London, Newcastle, Cleveland and many other places.

Ian and his wife were Francophiles; they had a house in France and Ian had many professional contacts with French child and adolescent psychiatrists, whose meetings he often attended. He and Jennifer had three children, two sons and a daughter, all of whom survive him.

Ian died of hepatocellular carcinoma which was diagnosed only a few weeks before his death on 18 September 2009.