1998 INDUCTEE Heinz E. Lehmann, MD Brain & Mind, Brain & Mind

Heinz Lehmann inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame

Hull, Quebec

For the last 17 years of his life, Dr. Lehmann became Deputy Commissioner of the Research Division for New York State Office of Mental Health

His passionate and selfless commitment to improving mental health research and policy was evident in his yearly salary, which amounted to $1.

The Douglas Hospital Research Centre was established and Dr. Lehmann served as the first chairman of the Centre’s board

The Centre became the largest of its kind in Quebec and focuses on the clinical, psychosocial and neuroscientific domains of mental illness.

Throughout Dr. Lehmann's career, he worked to remove the stigma around mental illness by humanizing the person behind the illness

Notably, Heinz Lehmann was a member of the Nomenclature Committee of the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 that decided to remove “homosexuality” from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a huge step towards reversing the negative implications of pathologizing homosexuality in Canadian society.

On the forefront of psychiatric therapy, Dr. Lehmann became Director of the Division of Psychopharmacology in Department of Psychiatry at McGill

While he served as Director for only one year, Dr. Lehmann remained with the centre for many years.

Not only a brilliant scientist, Dr. Lehmann proved to be an able leader

In 1962, he was made Director of Research at Douglass Hospital. Five years later, he was also given responsibility for medical education.

Following the success of chlorpromazine, Dr. Lehmann made another ground-breaking discovery

He discovered imipramine for the treatment of depression. Both imipramine and chlorprozamine were some of the first agents shown to alleviate symptoms of severe mental illness.

Dr. Heinz Lehmann initiated the first North American trial of a drug that would forever change the treatment for mental illness around the world

He demonstrated that within a mere week chlorprozamine was highly successful in significantly reducing delusions, hallucinations and thought disorders in his psychiatric patients.

Dr. Lehmann became a lecturer at McGill University

In the same year, he became a naturalized Canadian citizen. Soon, Lehmann was hired as an Assistant Professor at McGill and eventually attained the rank of full professor.

Dr. Lehmann began a 60-year career at Verdun Protestant Hospital (later Douglas Hospital) in Montreal, Quebec.

His first position was as a junior psychiatrist. By 1947, he had established a reputation as a talented clinician, researcher and educator and was appointed Clinical Director.

Received his MD at the University of Berlin in 1935

Fleeing from Nazi Germany in 1937, Dr. Lehmann immigrated to Canada.