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2006 Professional Achievement Award

Ira D. Glick ’57

With a 69-page curriculum vitae, Ira Glick ’57 has led a full life.

Glick has been professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University Medical School since 1993, where he teaches psychopharmacology and researches the use of antipsychotic medications for schizophrenia.

“I like the fact that in my work I can do three or four things at once—teach, research, administrate and see patients. Each day is different.”

While his professional life keeps him busy, Glick finds time for several hobbies. “I play basketball on two national senior teams,” he says. “It’s a whole separate career.”

A budding artist, Glick has sold several pieces of his night photography, participated in six shows and been published in national magazines. He also collects paintings, sculptures and ceramics from around the world. He and wife Juannie Eng “have a very personal and eclectic collection,” he says.

Thanks to his lifelong friendship with director Garry Marshall, Glick has acted in several big-name movies. “They are minor roles, but it’s fun,” he says. “I always get a speaking part.”

After he earned a B.S. in chemistry from Dickinson, Glick received an M.D. from New York Medical College in 1961. He interned at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City and had residencies at hospitals in Queens and San Francisco.

From 1988-90, Glick was the senior science adviser to the director of the National Institute of Mental Health. He has taught at the Medical College of Georgia, the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and the Cornell University Medical College.

On sabbatical in 1987, Glick spent six months in Italy and six months as a Fulbright research scholar in Japan. He lectures worldwide and returned to Japan this May for a 6-lecture series.

Recently he received the 10,000-Euro Lundbeck Award for the psychopharmacology curriculum he developed.

“It is a tool that people around the world can use to help trainees deal with the difficulty keeping up with the modern advances in psychiatry,” he explains. Most residency programs in the United States use it now, and adoption by all programs is planned for next year.

Glick is co-author or author of or contributor to more than 13 books, 130 journal articles and 53 book chapters and columns. Since 1991, Glick has received awards from New York Medical College, the Northern California Psychiatric Society, the American Family Therapy Academy and the American Psychiatric Association, among others.

In 2003, Glick returned to Dickinson as a Metzger-Conway Fellow, a residency program sponsored by The Clarke Center. He spoke in four classes, gave a public lecture and played in the alumni basketball game. This return to campus reinforced Glick’s commitment to his alma mater. “Dickinson was the place that implanted many ideas into my head, from science to the arts to literature to sports,” he says. “I am eternally grateful. You can see the evidence in my career.”

Glick lives in San Francisco with his wife and children Brandon, 15, and Olivia, 11. Daughter Rachel, 41, is a neuropathologist in New York and son Jonathan, 38, is a lawyer in San Francisco.