In Memoriam: Emeritus Professor Robert Goodman
With great sadness, we announce the death of Emeritus Professor Robert Goodman, who died in December.
Professor Robert Goodman was Professor of Brain and Behavioural Medicine within the Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN). Alongside this he was a member of the Royal College of Physicians and was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1987.
With the exception of time spent at Great Ormond Street Hospital Institute of Child Health as a Wellcome Training Fellow, Professor Goodman spent his entire career at South London and Maudsley and the IoPPN, becoming one of the leading names in children’s mental health. He is the primary inventor of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Development and Wellbeing Assessment (DAWBA). These are psychiatric assessment instruments that are now employed worldwide.
Professor Matthew Hotopf CBE, Executive Dean IoPPN said:
Robert was the ideal clinical academic, combining a depth of knowledge and erudition with a humble and kind approach to his work a clinician, teacher and researcher. We have lost a member of the IoPPN/Maudsley family who many will remember fondly.
As a child psychiatrist, Professor Goodman specialised in brain and behavioural medicine, with a specific focus on children’s mental health, understanding risk factors, hemiplegia (paralysis on one side of the body) and online psychiatric screening.
As well as writing many academic papers throughout this career, Professor Goodman is co-author, alongside Professor Stephen Scott, of the widely used book on child psychiatry, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry which has been published in many languages and is used globally.
Throughout his career his work was driven by a passion to develop tools and best-practice models to help children and young people have faster access to evidence-based care.
