Dr Sarada Menon, India’s first woman psychiatrist, dies in Chennai | Chennai News – Times of India

CHENNAI: Dr Sarada Menon, India’s first woman psychiatrist and the longest-serving head of the Institute of Mental Health, died in a Chennai hospital on Sunday due to age-related ailments. She was 98.
Dr Menon, who graduated from the Madras Medical College, underwent a psychiatry training at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru.
“I never missed her classes,” recalls Lakshmi Vijayakumar, founder of Sneha, an organisation that works towards suicide prevention.
“She had retired before I joined my postgraduate in psychiatry. But she was a passionate teacher who ensured that she continued to teach and train all of us,” Dr Vijayakumar said. “IMH and its developments were dear to her,” she said.
“Rehabilitation was one of her key focuses,” said senior psychiatrist R Thara, Dr Menon student along with whom she founded the Schizophrenia Research Foundation.
“For her medicine is not just science. She believed that none of the medicines and therapy she prescribes to patients is useful unless we put them back into mainstream,” Dr Thara recalled.
She authored many papers on mental health and is a recipient of many national and international awards including the Padma Bhushan (1992).
Most of her patients and their families told TOI that her death has left a huge void in their lives. She had been practising medicine until recently from her simple clinic at her residence on the Ormes Road in Kilpauk.
“There is nothing fancy about her clinic. She has a simple consulting room outside which there are a few benches. Patients from across the country would be waiting there,” Dr Thara recalled.
Ranjani Ramesh, a schoolteacher, recalls how her father loved meeting Dr Menon. “She was more like a family member,” she said.
On Monday, when her body was placed for public homage, most patients said just one thing to say: “There is going to be no one like her anymore.”