Kenneth Leon Davis, MD – 50th Reunion Essay

Kenneth Leon Davis, MD

15 North Street

Greenwich, CT 06830

kenneth.davis@mssm.edu

516-445-1961

Spouse(s): Bonnie Morrison Davis, MD (1972)

Child(ren): Daniel Harold Davis (1977), Jordanna Morrison Davis (1981)

Grandchild(ren): Four

Education: Yale University, BA, Psychology 1969; Mount Sinai School of Medicine, MD, 1973

Career: President & CEO Mount Sinai Health System (NYC) 15 years; Chairman of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine (NYC) 15 years

Avocations: Trustee, The Aspen Institute

College: Morse

I recall the day I entered Yale College. My parents were driving me along the Connecticut turnpike, and I was feeling utterly intimidated. My best guess was that Yale would be filled with class valedictorians and at worst salutatorians, and I was neither. I was there because I was a pretty good high school sprinter and the Yale track coach had an interest in my attending Yale. I thought my only hope was to spend every minute I was not running, sleeping, or eating, studying.

About a month and a half later I was stopped by the dean of our college while I was walking out of the Morris College library. The dean asked me how I spent my time, and I replied that I ran, ate, slept, and studied. He looked appalled, and told me that from this point forward I needed to stop studying after dinner every Friday and not resume until after lunch every Sunday. Sanity began to enter my life, and my sense of dread abated. The academic success I ultimately achieved at Yale gave me a confidence in myself, my ability to solve problems and my ability to lead that has propelled me through life.

My scientific career began with a publication deriving from an undergraduate project. It extended to the study of brain neurotransmitters and psychiatric disease while I was still in medical school, grew further at Stanford and blossomed at Mount Sinai. Early on I led a large and growing research team that over the next few decades received tens of millions of dollars in federal grants to study the neuronal basis of schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. My work became the basis for four of the five drugs currently approved for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Along the way I won numerous awards from various organizations for my scientific contributions, but the award I hold in the highest esteem is the George H. W. Bush Leadership Award from Yale.

In 2003 I was asked to become dean of our medical school and shortly thereafter the dean and CEO of our medical school and health system, a job I continue to hold today. It has been a period of unparalleled growth for our organization. The confidence I gained from my undergraduate days has undoubtedly contributed to my success.

However, my greatest joys are my 45-year marriage to my wife Bonnie, an accomplished physician, scientist and entrepreneur, my two children, Daniel (Yale ’99) and Jordanna (Yale ’03), and my four wonderful grandchildren.