Following a national search, the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) announced the appointment of Charles Dike, MD, MPH as Director of the Whiting Forensic Division of Connecticut Valley Hospital. The appointment is effective August 10, 2012.
Dr. Dike is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale in the department's Law & Psychiatry Division.
The Whiting Forensic Division of Connecticut Valley Hospital provides evaluation and treatment services to individuals with serious mental illness and/or substance use disorders who become involved in the criminal justice system.
"I am very pleased to have a psychiatrist of Dr. Dike's caliber to assume the leadership of the Whiting Forensic Division," said Patricia Rehmer, MSN, Commissioner of DMHAS, in a written announcement. "In his work at Whiting, Dr. Dike has demonstrated a tireless dedication to the welfare of our patients and to improving the ways in which we provide services. He has a well-rounded familiarity with the strengths, needs and challenges of our system of care at its various levels."
Dr. Dike joined Whiting 10 years ago as an attending psychiatrist after completing his training in forensic psychiatry at Yale. Since 2006, he has been the Medical Director of the Whiting Forensic Division.
Dr. Dike has trained internationally, and is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists of England. He is active in academic and organized psychiatry and forensic psychiatry. He served as President of the Connecticut Psychiatric Society (2010-11), and has received that organization’s Service Award. He currently chairs the Ethics Committee of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) and is the Editor of AAPL's Newsletter.
He has authored more than 20 articles and editorials in the field, as well as co-authored a book chapter on the Forensic Unit in the American Psychiatric Association’s Textbook of Hospital Psychiatry.