Michael John Pritchard was a psychiatrist at St Thomas’ Hospital, London. Born in London, he was the son of Alfred William, a schoolmaster. After attending Selhurst Grammar School, he studied medicine at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and St Thomas’ Hospital. Qualifying in 1953, he did house jobs at Portsmouth Royal Hospital for a year and then returned to St Thomas’ as house physician and then, casualty officer before he joined the RAMC to do his National Service. He was medical officer to the Queen’s Royal Lancers from 1955 to 1957.

On demobilisation he joined the staff of St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey as a locum senior registrar and then, again, went back to St Thomas’ as a demonstrator in pathology. In 1958 he became senior registrar at the Maudsley Hospital and, following this, senior lecturer in psychiatry at the London Hospital Medical College. He was then appointed assistant director to the department of psychiatry and consultant psychiatrist at the London and finally, in the early 1970s, senior lecturer in psychiatry and honorary consultant psychiatrist at St Thomas’.

He published papers on a variety of psychiatric topics including the different problems presented by adult and children psychiatric patients and psychiatric treatment in a general hospital. Outside medicine, he was interested in music and was a great supporter of the visual arts.

In 1956 he married Mary Veronica née Derham, the daughter of Walter Hanover James Frank Derham who was an army officer. Mary and their two sons survived him when he died.

RCP editor