[3] Sartorius was born in Münster, Germany[1] but grew up in Koprivnica[4] and Zagreb, Croatia [5][6] raised by his mother, Professor Feđa Fischer-Sartorius, a renowned pediatrician.
[5] After obtaining his Ph.D., and passing the speciality examinations for Neurology and Psychiatry Sartorius spent two years at the University of London on a British Council stipend.
[7] He then took the position of Medical Officer responsible for epidemiological and social psychiatry and in 1974 at WHO Headquarters became the Chief of the Mental Health Unit.
Sartorius is a Fellow of the British Royal Society of Medicine, Honorary Fellow European Association of Social Psychiatry, member of Medical Academies in Croatia, Mexico and Peru, and a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Spain and of the Croatian Academy of Arts and sciences, Honoris causa Doctor of Medicine of the Umeå University, of the Timișoara/Temisvar University Victor Babes and of the Charles University in Prague.
[4][9][11][12][13][14] He has conducted more than 150 Leadership and Professional Skills courses involving more than 2000 early career psychiatrists from more than 60 countries.
Between 1961 and 2022, Sartorius published more than 500 papers in peer reviewed journals and more than 800 technical contributions, prefaces to books, interviews and brief articles.