The following tribute was written by Dan Becker, Pieter Joost van Wattum, and Catherine Chiles.
Mark DeAntonio, MD, a member of the Yale Psychiatry Residency Program from 1982-85, died at his home in Los Angeles on December 31, 2021. He was 67.
Despite a long and difficult illness, at the time of his passing, Mark remained in his roles as director of inpatient child and adolescent psychiatry at the UCLA Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital and as professor of clinical psychiatry at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.
Mark came to Yale after completing medical school at Stanford University. Three years later, he returned to his native Los Angeles to pursue the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship at UCLA. He then joined the UCLA faculty and remained there for the entirety of his career.
Mark was widely regarded as a master clinician, an exemplary teacher, an expert in the mental health aspects of AIDS/HIV, and as a humanitarian. Those who worked with Mark at Yale will remember him as an avid learner, as a helpful and thoughtful colleague, and as a dedicated and kind physician.
On the national arena, and for many years, he was active in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and for many years was a Board Member of AACAP Political Action Committee and presented at their annual meetings as a master clinician. He was a fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists, and a national examiner for the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Boards of the ABPN.
He was a longstanding advocate for children’s mental health and for equitable care for all patients. For many years he worked with underserved children as a medical volunteer in Peru.
Mark is survived by his mother (Madeline), his wife (Polly Estabrook), their daughter (Charlotte) and son (Jasper), a granddaughter (Juniper), his two brothers (Carlo and Thomas), and his sister (Luisa Buchman). Details of a memorial will be forthcoming. The family has requested that contributions in his honor be made to the "UC Regents - Mark DeAntonio Memorial Fund in Child Psychiatry," 760 Westwood Plaza, Room 48-240, Los Angeles, CA, 90024.