Dean for education is appointed Jockers Professor

Richard Belitsky, M.D., deputy dean for education and associate professor of psychiatry, has been named the Harold W. Jockers Associate Professor of Medical Education.

Since he joined the medical school faculty, Belitsky has focused on curriculum development at the School of Medicine, particularly with respect to training medical students in the biopsychosocial model of medicine, teaching techniques for patient-centered medical interviewing, and teaching how to counsel patients to change unhealthy behaviors. He is also interested in the development of professional identity in medical education, with emphasis on the impact of power and authority on the developing identity of medical students.

Belitsky received his M.D. from the University of Florida School of Medicine in Gainesville. He came to Yale in 1979 as a resident in psychiatry and continued on as a fellow in forensic psychiatry and chief resident/instructor in the Department of Psychiatry. He joined the faculty as an assistant professor in 1983, when he also became unit chief of the Inpatient Services Division of the Connecticut Mental Health Center.

Belitsky has served as the director of graduate education in the Department of Psychiatry and as the department’s director of education from 1997 to 2006, when he became the deputy dean for education for the medical school.