Richard Veith, MD, has announced plans to step down as UWMC Chief of Psychiatric Services in January, 2019. He will maintain his faculty appointment at a reduced effort with plans to continue ongoing global mental health work in Vietnam and Cambodia, to provide ongoing care to a small panel of long-term patients, and to assist the Department in the planning for the new inpatient psychiatric unit at Northwest Hospital.

Dr. Veith is a Seattle native who has spent his entire career at UW. He entered the UW SOM in 1970, graduated in three years, spent his internship year in Internal Medicine and completed Psychiatry residency training in 1977. He joined the UW faculty and was based at the Seattle VA Puget Sound Health Care System for 22 years as a member of the Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC). He conducted research on depression among cardiac patients, explored the neuroendocrinology of stress hormones and sympathetic nervous system function in humans, and examined the effects of antidepressants on cardiovascular function. In 1987, he became director of the GRECC and from 1998 to 2014, he served as Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Between 2011 and 2016, Dr. Veith was appointed by Eric K. Shinseki, US Secretary for Veterans Affairs, to Chair the VA Geriatrics and Gerontology Advisory Committee, a congressionally mandated oversight committee advising the VA Secretary and Congress on geriatric programs throughout the VA.

Our department is extremely grateful for the outstanding service and leadership provided by Dr. Veith for nearly four decades. Ryan Kimmel, MD, will step in as Interim UWMC Service Chief when Dr. Veith steps down from this role in January 2019, and we have initiated a national search for a permanent UWMC Service Chief. Please reach out to Dr. Mark Snowden who is chairing this search or to Dr. Jürgen Unützer if you are interested in being considered for this role or if you have suggestions for a candidate from another institution.