Psychiatric Bulletin (2002) 26: 277. doi: 10.1192/pb.26.7.277
© 2002 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Psychiatric Bulletin (2002) 26: 277
© 2002 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Arthur Manfred Shenkin
Formerly Consultant Psychiatrist Southern General Hospital, Glasgow
Malcolm Ingram
Arthur Shenkin, who died on 25 January 2002, was a pioneer in bringing
psychiatry into general hospitals in post-war Glasgow, at a time of much
hostility from other hospital doctors to psychiatrists and their patients. A
tall man, with a commanding presence, his nature was warm and gentle. With his
charm, and great reserves of patience and tolerance, he could calm the most
disturbed patients and — much more difficult — awkward colleagues
on medical committees.
Born on 1 March 1915 in Glasgow, the son of Latvian Jewish immigrants, he
spoke in a medley of three languages in his pre-school years, and always
regarded this as a formative influence. He was educated at Hutchesons' Grammar
School and Glasgow University where he graduated MBChB in 1942 and elected
FRCP (Glasgow) in 1971. In his student days his fierce commitment to socialism
and Zionism, and his involvement in the politics of the 1930s, competed with
his medical studies. When he qualified in 1942 he served in the Royal Air
Force at home and in India, latterly in psychiatry. Demobilised in 1946, he
joined the staff of the Southern General Hospital, where he found the
psychiatric wards of the former Poor Law Hospital housing some 130 chronically
ill patients. In a short time he reorganised the unit, created active
treatment wards and opened the first out-patient clinic in the area. The unit
thrived to such an extent that, after the NHS was created in 1948, it was
chosen to house the new University Department by Glasgow's first Professor of
Psychological Medicine, T. Ferguson Rodger. In his 28 years at the Southern,
Arthur bore a heavy clinical load, played a full part in teaching and, in what
for others would have been leisure time, developed a large private practice.
He was interested in the psychological problems of the physically ill and
developed services for them in the expanding general hospital. Twenty years
later the rest of psychiatry caught up with him and named his activities
‘liaison psychiatry’. In the 1950s he began to instruct ministers
in pastoral psychology, another innovation, which developed over the years
into a regular undergraduate course in the Faculty of Theology. He was rightly
proud of his respected status there. Before he retired in 1976 he had helped
to secure the Walton Conference Suite for the hospital and had chaired many of
its committees. Retirement for him meant continuing work until the century
ended. He became a tutor in psychotherapy at Dykebar Hospital, Paisley,
continued his private practice and expanded his medico-legal work. He was in
demand as an expert witness in the courts until his late 70s. He lectured
extensively and was president of the Glasgow Royal Philosophical Society from
1996 to 1998. He was a man of wide interests and a great and combative talker,
with a fund of stories and proverbs that he deployed effectively both in
company and the consulting room. He was an authority on the prophet Hosea, and
over many years wrote and rewrote an epic poem in Scots on the theme of the
Creation, in which God featured as a woman. This amusing and original work was
acclaimed by the many learned societies to which he delivered excerpts. He
remained a socialist throughout his life, and never lost his loyalty to the
cause of Israel. Through all these years he was sustained by, and devoted to,
his wife Lillian, also a full-time doctor, and his three daughters. He took
pride in his growing band of talented grandchildren, and lived to see one of
them a consultant physician. In old age he recovered completely from a
fractured neck of femur and major surgery on an aortic aneurysm. He died full
of years, clear-minded to the end, after a life well-lived.
