Gary Belkin
Categories: Advisory Board
Gary Belkin is a doctor and historian interested in the value of historical scholarship to inform medical practice, with a particular focus on using history to think about the political and ethical dimensions of medicine and public health. He serves as Deputy Director of Psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City, where he is also Associate Professor in the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine. He holds a BS and MD (Brown), and a PhD in history and an MPH (Harvard). His published historical works covers a wide range, including ethics in medicine, mind-brain constructions in medicine and society, and social psychiatry. Professor Belkin directs the Program in Global Public Mental Health at Bellevue and NYU, is co-chairman of the Working Group on Human Rights and Mental Health at the United Nations, and is a member of the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences (ISHN). He is involved in several projects aimed to extend the uses of community-based mental health strategies in New York City and internationally, exploring the degree they can be used for public health purposes. This also covers social development-relevant mental health care and mental health policy as part of the UN Millennium Village Project. In recent efforts, Professor Belkin has focused on effective uses of mental health and psychological infrastructures and expertise for conflict prevention and post-conflict management and recovery. He is completing a book study on the Harvard Brain Death Committee and evolving care for hopelessly ill individuals as a way to gain historical understandings of the bioethics movement, the uses of medicine as a source of ethical discourse, and attitudes about medical progress, ethics, and technology.
Professor Belkin’s advisory role at the xClinic is guiding the EnvironMENTAL Health Project, addressing the role and place of civic participation in suicide prevention.
