‘More tributes have been paid to Jim Strain, MD, who died at the beginning of August.’
Gary Kennedy, MD, Professor and Vice-Chair for Education, Director, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and Fellowship Program, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine:
“I was a Psychiatry resident in San Antonio when I first read two of Jim’s books on C-L Psychiatry and decided that was the career for me.
“I interviewed at Montefiore and was accepted for a two-year position matched with a T32 research training program. The plan was to return to Texas, but the opportunities at Montefiore set up by Jim before he left were so plentiful that I remain at Monte—now more than 40 years later.
“His publication with David Hamerman, MD, on ‘Ombudsman Rounds’, which is a multi-professional patient-based case conference, had a profound impact. We were able to apply that model to create a teaching nursing home experience for residents, fellows, and students which has endured for more than 25 years thanks to the generous support from the New York Foundation for Eldercare.
James Strain has passed away, but his contributions live on.”
Hamp Atkinson, MD, Professor of Psychiatry (Active Emeritus), School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego:
“I think of Dr. Strain often. What a rich and rewarding life he had.
“My memory of him is of his ‘electric’ energy and intensity, softened by his kind gentleness towards his trainees and his patients.
“Coming as I did into his fellowship at Montefiore from a neuropharmacology-oriented residency at the University of California, San Diego, in the later 1970s, one that had backed away from psychoanalysis and embraced neuroscience with confident finality, it was a delight to see him as a unique researcher and clinician. How often does one have a supervisor and mentor who is a psychoanalyst-—and who also practices and researches electroconvulsive therapy?
“One special memory is of his openness and self-disclosure. At the end of a very long day conducting consultations, we finished his clinical supervision, and sat down to discuss my research project on a hemodialysis unit. As I began talking he interrupted me to put into words what was belaboring me, by stating how difficult it was for him to live a professional life in which he daily ‘changed gears’ from clinician to clinician-researcher.
“Hearing that from him gave me a sense of relief, and a perspective that I returned to many times in the years ahead.”
The Jim Strain obituary with further tributes was published here.