Professor of Psychiatry Named New Associate Dean of Academic Affairs

Douglas Hughes, MD, has been named the new associate dean of academic affairs. Hughes replaces Sharon M. Levine, MD, who has stepped down due to her expanded national leadership roles in academic medicine and geriatrics as well as the continued pursuit for national dissemination of the Chief Resident Immersion Training Program in Geriatrics, which she created.

A member of the BUSM community since 1997, Hughes is a professor of psychiatry and served as assistant dean of diversity and multicultural affairs and chair of the school’s Appropriate Treatment in Medicine Committee prior to this appointment.

He also served as chair of the Clinical Curriculum Subcommittee and teaches in all four years of the medical school curriculum. He is the recipient of the Preclinical Sciences Educator of the Year Award as well as BUSM’s highest teaching award, the Stanley L Robbins Award for Excellence in Teaching.

“Dr. Hughes has been one of our most dedicated teachers and administrators,” says Dean Karen Antman. “Students and faculty alike look to him for his expertise and great sensitivity to the complex issues involved in medical education.”

Hughes is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Arizona and a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Medicine. He trained in psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center. He has consulted with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on establishing national guidelines for managing suicidal and violent behavior and more recently he consulted with the U.S. Department of Defense on suicide prevention. He has lectured extensively in Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America.

Board certified in psychiatry with special research interests in violence, suicide, and emergency psychiatry, he is a past president of the American Association of General Hospital Psychiatry and past president of the American Association of Emergency Psychiatry. Hughes has been listed as a Top Doctor in America in the U.S. News and World Report (2011) and in “Best Doctors in America” numerous times.

“I am enthusiastic about assuming this new position and look forward to working with the students, faculty, and deans of the school,” says Hughes. “I will dedicate myself to enhancing the wonderful curriculum and collegiality that characterizes Boston University School of Medicine.”