Psychiatry professor honored with endowed chair

William H. Sledge, M.D., HS ’73, FW ’75, professor of psychiatry and master of Calhoun College, has been appointed the first George D. and Esther S. Gross Professor of Psychiatry.

Sledge is the medical director of the Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital and assistant chief of psychiatry at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He is the editor or co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Psychotherapy, Clinical Challenges in Psychiatry and Core Readings in Psychiatry: An Annotated Guide to the Literature (second edition).

Among his professional interests are research into schizophrenia, aviation psychiatry, community and public-sector psychiatry, the doctor-patient relationship, the education of psychiatrists and medical students and the efficacy of mental health services.

Sledge came to the Department of Psychiatry as a resident in 1972, but upon completion of his residency he served in the Air Force, only to return to Yale as a member of the faculty in 1977. From 1987 to 1994 he was at the Connecticut Mental Health Center, as director of the outpatient division, clinical director and acting center director. Among his numerous honors is a listing since 2000 in “Best Doctors in America.”

The chair was established through the support of the Elizabeth K. Dollard Charitable Trust and the Esther S. Gross Trust. The Gross Trust was established by George D. Gross, M.D. ’36, and Esther S. Gross, M.D. Elizabeth K. Dollard, J.D. ’39, had a lifelong interest in the interactions of psychiatry, law and medicine.