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obituary
Edulji (Eddy) Sethna

Formerly Consultant
Psychiatrist, Hollymoor
Hospital, Birmingham
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 attach-
ment to West Bromwich and District
Hospital. He was awarded his MRC Psych

in 1971, and in 1976 he became a consul-
tant 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 Psychia-
trists 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 system-
atically so that he understood its ever-
evolving 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-presi-
dent 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.

Anne Sutcliffe
doi: 10.1192/pb.bp.106.013813

review
Clinical Handbook of
Psychotropic Drugs for
Children and Adolescents

K. Z. Bezchlibnyk-Butler
& A. S. Virani (eds)
Hogrefe & Huber, 2004, US$49.95,
312 pp. ISBN 0-88937-271-3

This handbook is intended as a practical
reference book for clinicians. Thus one
measure of its success is how useful it is
in a busy clinical setting and whether
there is any added benefit over the British
National Formulary or its international
equivalents.
The book starts by providing a brief

overview of psychiatric disorders in child-
hood and adolescence. This section is the
weakest because although it provides the

‘basic facts’ there is not sufficient detail
for prescribing clinicians. I did, however,
find myself using this section as a basis
for handouts for medical students.
The main body of this text is devoted

to medications likely to be used in child
and adolescent psychiatric practice. Taking
the section on antidepressants as an
example, it starts with a brief overview of
the different classes of available anti-
depressants and general comments on the
use of antidepressants in children and
young people. For individual classes of
drugs indications, pharmacology, dosing,
pharmacokinetics, onset and duration of
action, adverse effects, withdrawal,
precautions, toxicity, use in pregnancy,
nursing implications, patient instructions
and drug interaction are all covered. There
are also helpful (and reproducible) patient
information leaflets. The information

provided is concise and up to date,
although in this fast-developing field there
is a danger that such texts can become
out of date relatively quickly.
I found myself regularly referring to the

handbook in clinics. The accessible writing
style made it easy to share the informa-
tion with young people and their parents/
carers. The only limitation is that the
book’s American authorship means that it
tends to refer to licensing under the US
Food and Drug Administration and
reflects American practice, which does
differ in some respects from
contemporary practice in the UK.

Margaret Murphy Department of Child
Psychiatry, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mental
HealthTrust, Ida Darwin Hospital, Cambridge Road,
Fulbourn, Cambridge CB15EE, email:
margaret.murphy@cambsmh.nhs.uk

doi: 10.1192/pb.bp.105.004333

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