About us
A set of core values has guided my life and career as a psychiatrist. First is the breadth of experience, which spans four decades of outpatient and inpatient practice treating schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety disorders, stress, trauma and grief syndromes, attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, post-partum problems, psychiatric problems complicated by alcohol or substance misuse, as well as couples and families in crisis. I served as the chief of New York Presbyterian's specialized inpatient service for young adults with borderline and other personality disorders, and for 25 years, treated psychiatric emergencies in the hospital's Emergency Department.
Next is a drive to seek a deeper understanding of mental disorders. I’ve seen impressive therapeutic advances during my career, but also many patients who we were not able to help enough. The need for better treatments motivated me to pursue neuroscience research in mid-career. Over ten years in two world-renowned laboratories at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, I researched the earliest developmental origins of infant-mother attachment with Myron Hofer, M.D., and the molecular and genetic underpinnings of psychiatric disorders with Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, M.D. My research instilled in me great optimism that the collaborative work of neuroscientists and psychiatrists will deliver more effective treatments and provide me with a clear perspective with which to evaluate the potential of new discoveries to benefit my patients.
Another core value is teaching, having taught Cornell medical students and residents my entire career. The Cornell medical students honored me with their award for the school's best teacher, and I’ve received other local and national awards for outstanding teaching. As president of the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry, the only national organization dedicated to advancing psychiatric teaching and curriculum development for medical students, I led the creation of national curriculum goals for psychiatry. My teaching extends to my professional writing, including first-authored chapters on mood disorders1 and infant attachment2 that were published in major textbooks, and to my office practice, where I strive to make our psychiatric knowledge understandable, useful, and inspiring to my patients as they endeavor to recover and grow.
Finally, I have been guided by a deep sense of this most fundamental principle of healing: that life is a precious gift entrusted to each of us to respect, enjoy, find meaning in, and help others to do the same. From my stewardship of the plants and animals on my family’s farm in upstate New York to my role as a primary care doctor on a medical mission in rural Ghana to the psychiatric care I provide in my office to each new patient, my goal is to guard and support the uniqueness of each individual life in striving to reach their potential.
Finally, I have been guided by a deep sense of this most fundamental principle of healing: that life is a precious gift entrusted to each of us to respect, enjoy, find meaning in, and help others to do the same. From my stewardship of the plants and animals on my family’s farm in upstate New York to my role as a primary care doctor on a medical mission in rural Ghana to the psychiatric care I provide in my office to each new patient, my goal is to guard and support the uniqueness of each individual life in striving to reach their potential.