Richard Veith named to chair Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Richard Veith

Dr. Richard Veith, a noted expert on geriatric psychiatry, has been named chair of the School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, effective in October. He had been acting chair since January.

He directed the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System beginning in 1987 and has headed his department’s Division of Gerontology and Geriatrics since 1991.

Veith was born in Seattle, graduated from the UW School of Medicine in 1973, completed an internship and residency here, and joined the faculty as a psychiatry and behavioral sciences instructor in 1977. He has been a professor since 1989. He is a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a member of the Society for Neuroscience.

“Personally, it’s a wonderful opportunity for me to become chair of the department where I did my training,” Veith said.

His area of interest is the assessment and management of depression in the elderly, especially in conjunction with medical illness. Recent research has focused on the role of depression, and of antidepressant medications, in cardiac disease.

Veith is especially interested in the role of the major hormone stress systems, which are activated in depression.

“We know from previous research that heart attack patients who also have depression are at much increased risk of death,” he said, “and we are trying to determine whether standard treatment with antidepressants or psychotherapy reduces this risk. We are participating with researchers in the School of Nursing in a national study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute that will determine whether treatment with cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy will reduce the risk of dying in depressed patients following a heart attack.

“We are also trying to understand exactly what factors are involved in these higher-than-expected mortality rates. A VA-funded project is studying increased sympathetic nervous system activity as a factor that might be responsible,” he added.

Veith succeeds Dr. Gary Tucker. Tucker is taking a year-long sabbatical before returning to the UW to teach and conduct research. ¶