Dear Colleagues,
I am deeply saddened to share that Professor Emeritus and former Department Head Dr. Neil J. Yorkston passed away on February 20, 2023 at the age of 94. As an active member of our faculty and Department leadership through the 1980s, Dr. Yorkston was an accomplished scholar and clinician who was highly esteemed by colleagues not only at UBC, but also in Australia, the UK, and beyond. I join his many friends and peers around the world who have received this news with heavy hearts, and suffice to say we will all miss him a great deal.
Dr. Yorkston’s long and exemplary career began in Australia, where he obtained his medical degree at Sydney University in 1952. Following his residency in internal medicine, he completed his training in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at Sydney University before relocating with his young family to a region of Ethiopia (now Eritrea) where he served as a medical missionary and head of the medical department at the Haile Selassie 1 Naval Base from 1958 to 1960. Thereafter, Dr. Yorkston and his family moved to the UK, where he completed his Diploma in Psychiatry and worked at Bethlem Royal Hospital and Maudsley Hospital for a number years. His call to academia came in 1967, when Dr. Yorkston obtained a number of research grants which facilitated his appointment as an Assistant Professor at Temple University. He was later recruited to the University of Minnesota as an Associate Professor, where he published numerous papers in leading journals such as The Lancet and Archives of General Psychiatry, and also authored an influential book titled Psychotherapy Versus Behavior Therapy.
Following his academic appointments and a return to clinical work in the UK for several years, Dr. Yorkston and his family immigrated to Vancouver when he was appointed as a full tenured Professor and Head of the UBC Department of Psychiatry in 1980. His arrival to UBC was warmly welcomed, as he was by this time a renowned researcher in his diverse areas of expertise, which included psychopharmacological studies in schizophrenia and in psychotherapies for patients with neurosis and other personality disorders. During his term as Head, he helped lead the Department on a course toward growth and transformation while navigating through a difficult fiscal climate at UBC; indeed, Dr. Yorkston was among a cadre of early academic leaders who helped build our Department into the modern, world-class centre of learning and research that it is to day.
Dr. Yorkston gradually retired from teaching and research activities in the early 1990s, returning to the UK to practice as a locum psychiatrist for several years before settling into full retirement in North Vancouver. As an Emeritus faculty member he continued to maintain his ties with the Department, most notably in his reliable attendance at our Annual Research Days year after year. He clearly enjoyed attending the talks on up-and-coming themes in research, and it was wonderful to see him engaging with young investigators and staying connected with the academic world in which he had been entrenched for so many decades.
Dr. Yorkston will be remembered not only as a visionary scholar and a gifted clinician, but also as a true gentleman whose warmth, humour and kindness touched many. The news of his passing will surely come with a deep sense of loss to all of his friends, colleagues, and former students here at UBC and around the world, who had the distinct privilege to both learn from and work alongside him over the decades.
If you wish to send a personal message to the family, please do so by visiting his memorial page here. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you consider making a donation to Overseas Missionary Fellowship (https://omf.org/ ), the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada (https://www.bloodcancers.ca/), or Peace Arch Hospice Society (https://www.peacearchhospice.org/). A Memorial Service will be held at Shaughnessy Heights United Church in Vancouver at 2pm on Saturday March 25th, 2023, with a reception immediately afterwards in the Church Hall. A link to livestream of the service will also be available on the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIUw3bv6SiU.
On behalf of the UBC Department of Psychiatry, I send my sincerest condolences to Dr. Yorkston’s children and the rest of his family during this most difficult time.
Sincerely,
Dr. Lakshmi N. Yatham, MBBS, FRCPC, MRCPsych (UK), MBA (Exec)
Professor and Head, UBC Department of Psychiatry
Director, Institute of Mental Health, UBC
Regional Head and Program Medical Director, VCH/PHC
The UBC Department of Psychiatry Administration Office respectfully acknowledges the land on which we live, work and play is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh).