Brought to you by the Depression Is Real Coalition, The Down & Up Show is dedicated to the reality of depression. Each week our hosts will talk with some of the world's top experts on depression, as well as people who have been impacted by this illness. The reality of depression is that it is a debilitating and potentially deadly medical condition that affects more than 15 million Americans every year. The other reality of depression is that there is hope.

Gary J. Kennedy MD

Dr. Kennedy is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science and Director, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and Fellowship Training Program, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. More than fifty psychiatrists with subspecialty training in geriatrics have graduated from the program. The training program is closely allied with Montefiore's Geriatric Medicine Fellowship Training Program with shared responsibilities in clinical services, case conferences, journal clubs and research. Since 1998 he has served in a variety of teaching and advisory positions for the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing, New York University School of Nursing. He has authored numerous publications on late life mental health and has given a number of invited presentations to educational, scientific and public policy organizations in the United States and abroad.

His research has focused on cardiac arrhythmias, the epidemiology of depression and dementia, mental health care in nursing homes, primary care sites and in the community, and novel communications approaches between health care providers. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the National Institute on Aging, the Forchheimer Foundation, the Resnick Gerontology Center, the New York State Department of Health, United Jewish Appeal-Federation, the JE & ZB Butler Foundation, The University Place Foundation, the Irving Weinstein Foundation, The Goldstein Foundation, The United Hospital Fund, and The New York Community Trust have supported his work. He has also received unrestricted educational grants from Janssen Pharmaceutica, Pfizer Incorporated, Forest Laboratories, Novartis as well as clinical research grants from Janssen Pharmaceutica, AstraZeneca, and Forest Laboratories. He was also the principal investigator of a project sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study telephone facilitation of depression treatment among primary care patients.

He has served as a consultant to the New York State Commission on Life and the Law regarding physician-assisted suicide and to the Law Revision Commission regarding guardianship procedures in New York State's mental health law. He was also a member of the New York State Department of Health Advisory Work Group on Human Subject Research Involving Protected Classes. He has been a member of the American Psychiatric Association's Council on Aging, and was the 2002 President of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. For the National Institute of Mental Health he was a member of the Mental Disorders of Aging Initial Review Group and Chairperson, Small Business Innovative Research Program Contract Reviews. In 2003 he was invited to testify before the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. He is a Fellow of the Brookdale Center on Aging of Hunter College, and The New York Academy of Medicine, and a member of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. He has received a New Investigator Award from the National Institute of Health, a travel study fellowship to Israel and the United Kingdom from the United States World Health Organization, an Archstone Award for Program Innovation from the American Public Health Association, Annual Exemplary Psychiatrists Award, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. The American Journal of Nursing cited his Geriatric Mental Health Care published in 2000 as one of the best books of the year on gerontology.

He was also the 2005-2007 chair of the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation, a Washington based 501c3 group advocating for the mental health and well being of senior Americans. In 2005 he was a Visiting Professor for the Geriatric Fellowship Training Program of the National Health Research Institute of Taiwan. In 2006 he was sponsored by The Atlantic Philanthropies to design a Bermuda specific geriatric mental health training program. Since 1992 he has been listed as one of "The Best Doctors in America". He has appeared on National Public Radio and the Today Show with Katie Couric.

Born in Dallas, Dr. Kennedy is an alumnus of the University of Texas in Austin and the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.