Ann Mary Rathie Guldberg (née Black)
BMJ 2006; 332 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.332.7556.1515-a (Published 22 June 2006) Cite this as: BMJ 2006;332:1515Data supplement
Ann Mary Rathie Guldberg (née Black)
Former consultant psychiatrist Royal Edinburgh Hospital, previously Dingleton Hospital, Melrose (b Sheffield 1938; q Edinburgh 1963; BSc (Hons) Pharmacology 1961, MRCPsych 1989), died from a heart attack on 28 April 2006.Rathie, as she became universally known, grew up and was educated in Edinburgh. In 1962 she married a Norwegian fellow student, Hans Cato Guldberg, professor of pharmacology, University of Trondheim (retired). After bringing up their five children there she worked in the General Practice Professorial Unit, University of Bergen, for one year before commencing in 1976 to train in psychiatry at the University of Trondheim Psychiatric Hospital, being accepted in 1981 by the Norwegian Ministry of Health as a fully qualified psychiatrist. She was appointed consultant psychiatrist at Dingleton Hospital, Melrose, Scottish Borders in 1982, where she was proud in due course to receive a C-merit award. In Dingleton, and in the community-based psychiatric work that has been, and is, such a feature of the hospital’s philosophy and practice, her considerable psychiatric skills and exceptionally sensitive and intuitive personality were highly regarded by patients and colleagues, and her enviable gift of generating almost universal affection became quickly apparent.
In 1995 she joined the staff of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, where she worked as a consultant in general adult psychiatry before being appointed to the Special Register for Old Age Psychiatry in 1996 to enable her to work in the hospital’s Jardine Clinic. During her time in Edinburgh it was rightly remarked on by one of her colleagues that many of her patients there had in her a champion of their rights and a doctor who cared deeply about the outcome of their treatment. On retirement in 2002 she joined for two years the staff of Castle Craig Hospital, Peeblesshire, which specialises in the treatment of alcohol and drug dependency.
Author of many psychiatric articles, linguist (fluent speaker of Norwegian and Italian), poet, artist, and lover of art (particularly that of the Italian Renaissance), her interests, accomplishments, friendships, and enthusiasms knew no boundaries. Intelligence, a very special sense of humour, a forthright but sensitive manner, allied to unique professional skills were all ingredients of her memorable personality and colourful life, which will be long remembered and treasured by family, in which she took such pleasure and pride, friend, colleague, and patient alike. A lifelong seeker of spiritual truths and insights she found her spiritual home in Edinburgh’s Old St Paul’s, where her very moving funeral took place. Although in her final working years illness began to diminish something of her boundless energy and enthusiasm, nothing can take away the memory of her finest days. Her death was unexpected, and caused by an unheralded myocardial infarction. She is survived by Hans, her two sons, three daughters, and six grandchildren. [Christopher H Cameron]
See more
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- Mr. Warburton's Bill for the Regulation of the Medical ProfessionProv Med Surg J October 03, 1840, s1-1 (1) 13-15; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.s1-1.1.13
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