Ment to oversee admissions
Dr. Robert J. Alpern, dean of the School of Medicine, recently announced two major appointments.
Dr. Richard Belitsky has been named as the school's new deputy dean for education, and Dr. Laura R. Ment as associate dean for admissions and chair of the admissions committee. Both took up their new posts on July 1.
Dr. Richard Belitsky
Belitsky was previously associate professor of psychiatry and the deputy chair for education in his department, where he had a major impact on the teaching of both medical students and residents. He succeeds Dr. Herbert Chase, who announced last December that he would step down at the end of the academic year.
"Dr. Belitsky is both a teacher's teacher and a doctor's doctor," said Alpern. "He is an outstanding educator who has received many of the top teaching awards from Yale and from his colleagues in psychiatry nationally. He is skilled at handling complex clinical problems and is one of the persons most turned to by colleagues when making a referral. He is also a highly effective administrator, adept at framing and resolving issues, conceiving and launching new programs, and gathering the data needed for good decision making. His outgoing manner and personal warmth are known throughout the medical school."
Belitsky came to Yale as a resident in 1979 and continued on as a fellow in forensic psychiatry in 1982-1983. He served as unit chief and director of inpatient services at the Connecticut Mental Health Center; as medical director and director of residency education at the Yale Psychiatric Institute; and as director of graduate education and of medical studies in psychiatry. He has been deputy chair of the department since 2001.
A native of Philadelphia, Belitsky received his bachelor's and medical degrees from the University of Florida. At Yale, he has served on numerous committees including the Medical School Admissions Committee, the Educational Policy and Curriculum Committee, the Continuing Medical Education Committee and the Physician Associate Program Curriculum Committee. He chairs the Committee on Physician Health at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
His teaching awards include the Charles W. Bohmfalk Teaching Prize in 2002, the Francis Gilman Blake Award in 1998 and again in 2000, induction into the medical school's Society of Distinguished Teachers in 2002 and the Irma Bland Award for Excellence in Teaching Residents from the American Psychiatric Association in 2005. The YSM Class of 2000 chose Belitsky to be its Commencement speaker.
In announcing Belitsky's appointment, Alpern said he also wanted to express "the school's gratitude to Dr. Chase for the extraordinary work he has done as deputy dean since 1999. Dr. Chase accomplished a great deal, including major initiatives to expand the teaching of clinical skills and human anatomy, the development of computer-based teaching methods and research skills for medical students, and the development of the curriculum and teaching faculty. We are indebted to him for his passionate commitment to the medical students and their education."
Dr. Laura R. Ment
Ment, professor of pediatrics and neurology, succeeds Dr. Thomas L. Lentz, who stepped down on June 30 after 38 years in admissions at the School of Medicine.
"Ment is an ideal person to serve in this role, having served as a distinguished member of the medical school faculty and the recipient of numerous teaching awards since 1979," said Alpern. "She is a highly respected clinician and researcher and a leading authority in the field of injury and recovery in the developing brain."
Ment is the author of more than 150 scholarly articles, including recent work published in the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrating that infants born prematurely largely recover from cognitive deficits by age 8. This was among the first evidence of such recovery based on the field's largest cohort, 505 infants born between 1989 and 1992.
In September 2005, Ment was appointed to the 18-member National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council, the major advisory panel of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Ment was chair of the Medical School Council 1999-2005 and remains involved as an adviser to the council on its speaker series and other matters. For her teaching at Yale, she has received the Francis Gilman Blake Award, the Leah Lowenstein Award and the Class of 2006 Teaching Award, and in 2003 was inducted into the Society of Distinguished Teachers. She participated in the strategic planning process as a committee member last year.
Ment came to Yale after receiving bachelor's and master's degrees from Brown University and her medical degree from Tufts in 1973. She was a neurology resident at Massachusetts General Hospital and a fellow at Hammersmith Hospital in London.
Alpern added: "I also want to express the school's gratitude to Dr. Lentz for his more than three decades of service to the school's admissions committee." Lentz, who chaired the admissions committee since 1972, is a professor of cell biology, who "played a crucial role in the design of the histology laboratories and virtual microscope system in The Anlyan Center, which have helped keep our science curriculum at the cutting edge," noted Alpern. Lentz will continue as professor emeritus of cell biology and director of the second-year course.
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