Professor NN Wig, doyen of Indian psychiatry, dies at 88
Wig set up the psychiatry department at Chandigarh’s Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in 1963, and was also associated with AIIMS.
Professor NN Wig, a prominent figure in the field of psychiatry in India, died on Thursday at Chandigarh’s Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research. He was 88.
Wig set up the psychiatry department at PGIMER in 1963, PTI reported. He was also head of the department of psychiatry at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi.
“He single-handed brought the department into being in 1963 and he continued to be intimately associated with the department and the PGIMER as one of its Emeritus Professors till July 12, 2018, when he passed away after a brief illness,” Ajit Avasthi, the head of the psychiatry department at PGIMER said. Avasthi added that “his vision will continue to guide the students and staff of the institute.”
Wig was born on October 1, 1930, in Gujranwala city of present-day Pakistan. He completed his MBBS from KG Medical College in Lucknow in 1953, and got his MD in Medicine degree from Lucknow University in 1957. Wig also completed a diploma in Psychological Medicine from England and Scotland during the early 1960s.
From 1984 to 1990 he was the regional advisor for mental health at the regional office of the Eastern Mediterranean of the World Health Organisation in Alexandria, Egypt, PTI said quoting a PGIMER press release.