Robin Murray

Who is Robin Murray?

Sir Robin MacGregor Murray FRS is a Scottish psychiatrist, Professor of Psychiatric Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. He also sees patients with schizophrenia and bipolar illness at the National Psychosis Unit South London and Maudsley NHS Trust who are referred because they fail to respond to treatment, or cannot get appropriate treatment, locally; he sees patients privately if they are unable to obtain an NHS referral.

Robin Murray trained in medicine at the University of Glasgow. After qualifying, he researched the chronic renal failure induced by the massive abuse of a local headache powder, Askit Powders. Then he started training in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital in London, and has remained there ever since apart from one year at the National Institute of Mental Health in the USA. He has been Dean of the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and Professor of Psychiatry there, but now focusses on research into, and care of people with psychotic illness. In 1987 he and Shon Lewis were among the first to suggest that schizophrenia might in part be a neurodevelopmental disorder. He, and the many colleagues with whom he has worked, demonstrated the important role of environmental factors in the aetiology of schizophrenia including obstetric events and other early childhood hazards. Later they showed the contribution of social adversity to the schizophrenia, and in particular to the high rates in African-Caribbean people living in the UK.