Andrew J. Gerber, MD, PhD
“The people who come for treatment at Silver Hill are the center and focus of everything we do.”
Putting patients first is the top priority of Dr. Andrew J. Gerber, Silver Hill’s President and Medical Director. A key element of Silver Hill’s focus on patients involves trusting what they have to say, Dr. Gerber believes. “First and foremost, our patients need to be heard,” he says. “They need to be listened to and understood by professionals who know something about what they’re going through and who can help them feel better.”
Dr. Gerber oversees day to day operations of inpatient, residential, outpatient levels of care, as well as nursing, research and education. He is dedicated to building a continuum of high-quality care for patients and their families using an interdisciplinary and integrative approach, while also identifying new ways to provide innovative treatment to patients regardless of their resources.
Dr. Gerber resists the temptation to quickly simplify a patient’s life experience to the narrow diagnosis of a condition. “There are some things in the world you want to simplify,” he says, “like difficult math problems. But human beings – their minds and their brains – are by far THE most complicated things that we know of in the universe.” What that means, he says, is “if you simplify, you invariably leave important things out.”
Part of the complexity of treating human beings involves friends and loved ones, Dr. Gerber acknowledges. “Our patients come to us in the context of people who care about them,” Dr. Gerber says. “And while they might not be suffering first hand from the patient’s disorder, they are surely suffering and they need our support as well.”
Dr. Gerber is proud of what he calls Silver Hill’s culture of connectedness. “It’s at the core of how we help people,” he says. “It’s a kind of network of caring relationships, between doctor and patient and also between all of our staff and all of our patients and their families.” Encouraging this culture is top of mind for Dr. Gerber. “The staff of Silver Hill are amazingly talented, and what they need from me is the necessary support and structure to care for our patients and loved ones to the best of their abilities.”
Taken together, these attributes of a patient-focused philosophy are the reason Silver Hill can help patients who may not have been helped before, Dr. Gerber believes. “If we put patients first, offer them a variety of evidence-based treatments, if we listen to and trust their personal narratives, and if we embrace their complexity and connect with them, then it’s a huge step forward.”
Residency
New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY, New York Presbyterian Hospital Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Training Program of Columbia and Cornell Universities New York, NY
Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Fellowship
NIMH-sponsored Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY
Academic Affiliations
Yale School of Medicine Associate Clinical Professor, Child Study Center and Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences University of Massachusetts Amherst
Professional Memberships
American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, American College of Psychiatrists, American Psychoanalytic Association,
Board Memberships
Board Member, National Alliance of Mental Illness, Massachusetts, Advisory Board Member, Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing
View Dr. Gerber's Appointments, Education, Honors and Awards, Professional Activities, Publications, Teachings & Presentations