 Rodger returned to Glasgow in 1934 as Deputy Superintendent of the Royal Mental Hospital and Assistant Lecturer in Psychiatry at the University.He remained there until 1940, when he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Specialist in Psychiatry.By 1944, he was Consultant in Psychiatry with the rank of Brigadier, and was stationed in India and the South East Asia Command area (Burma, Ceylon, India, Thailand, Indochina, Malaya and Singapore).