Edulji (Eddy) Sethna

Dr Eddy Sethna was born on 3 December 1925 in Bombay, India. He won two scholarships which entirely funded his medical school training and he qualified with MB BS from Bombay in 1951. Having completed house jobs in Bombay, he became a senior house officer in medicine at the Bury and Rossendale Group of Hospitals in Lancashire in 1954, obtaining his MRCP in 1956.

Having specialised in cardiology at the London Heart Hospital and Sefton General Hospital in Liverpool, he also obtained a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene in preparation for his return to India as a consultant physician to the Jahangir Nursing Home in Poona. He spent 21 months in this post but decided to return to England where he started his career as a psychiatrist.

Eddy's first psychiatric appointment was as a registrar at St Francis and Lady Chichester Group of Hospitals in Sussex. He did his senior registrar training in Birmingham and was appointed in 1966 as a consultant psychiatrist to All Saints Hospital in Birmingham with an attachment to West Bromwich and District Hospital. He was awarded his MRC Psych in 1971, and in 1976 he became a consultant to Hollymoor Hospital in Birmingham and the Lyndon Clinic in Solihull. He was elected FRCP in 1987, having been elected FRCPsych in 1986.

His publications included studies of the benefits of group psychotherapy and refractory depression, but he also had a major interest in phobias. When asked to organise a registrar training programme, Eddy with typical thoroughness and attention to detail demanded that he be allowed to establish the programme from scratch, ignoring the preconceived ideas of those more senior. Having gained their support he established the first rotational psychiatric training programme in the country. This scheme was so popular and successful with the trainees that it was adopted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists as their national model for rotational training.

In his early fifties, Eddy returned to his boyhood interest of photography as an antidote to the stresses of his job. In retirement, he became a leader and inspiration to the legions of amateur photographers taking tentative steps into the field of digital photography. He approached digital photography as he had approached medicine, studying the Adobe Photoshop computer programme systematically so that he understood its everevolving capabilities. He willingly offered one-to-one teaching sessions, wrote four books (two on paper and two on CD), was instrumental in the formation of the Royal Photographic Society's Digital Imaging Group, was founding chairman of the Eyecon Group and served as vice-president of the Royal Photographic Society. More recently the Royal Photographic Society awarded Eddy its prestigious Fenton Medal and Honorary Membership in recognition of his huge contribution to photography in the UK. He had numerous acceptances in international exhibitions and took great pride in the gold medal he was awarded shortly before his death in recognition of his creativity.

Eddy died at home of Hodgkin's lymphoma on 29 June 2006, cared for by his wife, Beryl, and daughters, Beverley and Julie, as was his wish. Eddy is survived by his wife, three children and seven grandchildren whom he adored.