Ronald Brown 1945-2017

I would like to say a few things on behalf of Ron's patients. As well, on behalf of his colleagues at the Department of Psychiatry of the Jewish General Hospital and the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society. It is not just Ron's involvement in family life, athletics, and the business world, he actually had a day job.

First, his patients: He had so many of them and in several completely different settings, including in our general psychiatry clinic, in psychoanalysis, and as part of his medical expertise business. He was well known amongst us to take on a very large number of patients, many of whom suffered particularly difficult conditions, which he was able to manage in a calming and warm fashion. He was dedicated to them, advocated for them, and went, as a colleague put it, ten extra miles. I have inherited some of them and can say that they loved and will miss him. As late as last November, while undergoing chemotherapy, Ron was still doing psychiatric expertise work. This is a testament to his unusual fortitude and courage.

Next, his colleagues and students: During his valiant struggle against his disease, Ron kept up his devotion to his work in teaching and helping patients. Less than two weeks ago he was still a supervising psychoanalyst in the United States over the telephone. Over his long career, Ron taught generations of psychiatric and psychoanalytic patients, students, and colleagues. Knowing about his productivity and unusual hard-working ethic, I believe that it is possible that Ron both treated and supervised more individuals than any other of his colleagues in the two milieus (psychiatric and psychoanalytic) in which he worked.

That is quantity. But where he really stood out was in quality. He was an unusually sensitive and astute clinician. He was intense, serious, and private as a person. He was unusually creative—he thought outside the box. He was our department of psychiatry's official poet. Ron was “an original.”