Dr. Malcolm Bowers’ legacy at Yale as a beloved teacher and mentor to trainees will be honored through a gift that will recognize outstanding accomplishments by a second-year resident in the Yale Department of Psychiatry’s residency program.
The Malcolm Bowers Residency Award was established by Dr. Bowers’ wife, Dr. Natalie deLeuchtenberg-Bowers, and his family, who say Dr. Bowers’ commitment to training new psychiatrists was a cornerstone of his long and richly successful career at Yale.
Dr. Bowers died in 2008 at home in Branford following a battle with cancer. He was 74. As the founding chief of the Research Unit at the Connecticut Mental Health Center, director of the Yale Psychiatry residency program, and associate department chair, Bowers inspired his peers, junior clinicians, residents, and fellows. He was widely respected not only by colleagues and trainees, but by patients and friends who appreciated his keen sense of humor and enjoyed reading his poetry.
“In the last 30 years, no one in the professorial ranks in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale has been so consistently acclaimed by our trainees,” wrote Ezra Griffith, MD, professor emeritus, in a tribute to Bowers published in 2008 in Connecticut Psychiatrist. “It is a peculiar reality that Malcolm Bowers served so strikingly as the reference for clinicians over the years. The young trainees saw him indisputably as their collective mentor, as the repository of all their dreams about being clinically astute, expert in the art of diagnosis and aware of all the scientific advancements with realistic applicability to clinical psychiatry.”
Dr. Bowers’ career was multi-faceted, a blending of science, teaching, and clinical work. While conducting groundbreaking research at CMHC and later at Yale-New Haven Hospital, he trained future generations of leaders in the field, including many who remain at Yale.
“That was one of his main interests, his students,” deLeuchtenberg-Bowers said. “His legacy continues through the residents.”
The Malcolm Bowers Residency Award will be presented annually to a second-year resident at the annual meeting of the Bowers Case Conference. The case conference is a 90-minute patient-oriented discussion that teaches second-year residents to view patients from an integrated bio-psycho-social perspective.
Dr. Bowers’ affiliation with the Yale School of Medicine spanned over four decades. After obtaining his MD degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1958, he completed an internship at Fitzsimons General Hospital in Colorado and served two years in the Army. He began his residency at Yale in 1962 and became an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in 1965. He was later promoted to Professor.
He was the founding Chief of the Research Unit at CMHC and Chief of Psychiatry at Yale-New Haven Hospital from 1973 to 1986. He initiated a series of groundbreaking studies on hallucinogenic drug exposure and the emergence of psychotic disorders, and conducted an extensive series of studies on the role of monoamines in psychosis and affective disorders which advanced the understanding of the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders and neuropharmacology of psychotropic drugs.
His mentorship of young researchers at Yale spanned 28 years while he was principal investigator of a Clinical Research Center grant. From 1986 to 1990 he was director of the Yale Psychiatry residency program, and was associate chair for clinical care and quality assessment and improvement from 1988 to 1995. During the 1990s he conducted research and taught for the inpatient services at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He became a professor emeritus of psychiatry in 2002 and continued to work full time until his death.
Dr. Bowers’ academic interests were not confined to Yale. He served on many editorial boards and published several books on the impact of mental illness on the lives of patients. He wrote poetry and was an avid fly fisherman, enjoying trips to Cape Cod with his family.