Jerrold Frank Rosenbaum – 50th Reunion Essay

Jerrold Frank Rosenbaum

120 Woodland Road

Auburndale, MA 02466

jrosenbaum@mgh.harvard.edu

617-966-3363

Spouse(s): Lidia Visbeek (1972)

Child(ren): Jed J (11/21/79) Eliza D (4/3/83) Blake L (11/3/89)

Grandchild(ren): Jonah August Kahn (2018)

Education: Yale BA 1969, Yale Medical MD 1973

Career: Stanley Cobb Professor of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School (21 years), Psychiatrist in Chief Massachusetts General Hospital (19 years)

Avocations: Family, Tennis, Golf, Travel

College: Saybrook

When you stay in one place, the passage of time is more imperceptible; people do change around you, wonderful young people come and go or come and stay, until you ultimately face that cliché of wisdom that it all goes by so fast. Around the time of our reunion, I should be receiving my 45-year pin for time at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and by my current plan, will have announced and accomplished my stepping down as chairman of the Department of Psychiatry after 19 years on the job. Reflecting on the challenges in academic medicine, one of my older colleagues likes to say “It could be worse, Jerry, we could be younger…” but in truth I am heartened by the explosion of new tools and new targets in psychiatric neuroscience and the prospects of new answers to the suffering of so many with psychiatric illness. I will stick around in various institutional roles at MGH for some more years, having completed terms as a trustee of the hospital and currently of the Partners Healthcare System. I plan to continue work with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, where I now serve as president and board member. I will be rooting mightily for the success of my startup, Psy Therapeutics, to translate innovative targets into novel therapeutics for brain diseases. And I will be setting my sights more of the time westward as our two older kids (Jed and Eliza) and their families are California based; our third child, Blake, will have completed medical school and will be bound to parts now unknown for residency.

It has been a good run, with varied experiences and accomplishments over the years, mainly participating in the remarkable growth of this department from a small department to a great one (US News #1 for 18 of the last 22 years) with over 600 faculty and 150 trainees. I am proud that our kids have become caring and effective adults with strong moral compasses and a commitment to the well-being of others through both their personal and work lives. I met my wife Lidia during Coed week, she a barely 18-year-old freshman from Mount Holyoke and I a 21-year-old senior, and now here we are 50 years later, I still smitten like the moment I saw her first crossing the Saybrook courtyard. After college I stayed in Saybrook two more years while a medical student, as a graduate advisor, then to Wright Hall as a Freshman Counselor and then finally left undergraduate Yale after seven years to be married and live off campus. From there, one year as an intern in Denver and then to the MGH forevermore. I remember so many fun and friendly relationships with classmates and regret that they have been barely sustained, but look forward to seeing many of you again in New Haven.