Richard Summers, MD
Co-Director of Residency Training
Richard F. Summers, MD is Co-Director of Residency Training and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Summers is Past President of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatry Residency Training (AADPRT) and chairs committees of AADPRT and the American Psychoanalytic Association. He is a member of the American College of Psychiatrists, the American Psychiatric Association, and the Philadelphia Psychiatric Society.
Dr. Summers has written on psychodynamic therapy training, therapeutic alliance, psychodynamic formulation, positive psychology and psychiatry residency training. His clinical interests focus on combined psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacologic treatment of mood and anxiety disorders, and adult lifecycle development. His research interests include the contemporary revision of the theory and technique of psychodynamic psychotherapy and new approaches to psychotherapy training and education.
The recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the Earl Bond Outstanding Teacher Award of the Department of Psychiatry at Penn in 2000, the Maestro Award at Pennsylvania Hospital in 2001, the Outpatient Teacher of the Year Award in 2002, 2008, 2010 and 2012 at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychiatry, and the Irma Bland Award for Excellence in Teaching Residents, Dr. Summers was named a "Top Doc" by Philadelphia Magazine numerous times since 1996. He was awarded the Robert Dunning Dripps Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Psychiatric Educator of the Year by the Philadelphia Psychiatric Society in 2007. He was Teacher of the Year at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia in 2008.
Dr. Summers received a B.A. from Harvard College in 1979, graduating magna cum laude in sociology, and an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Following psychiatry residency at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, Dr. Summers was Director of the Outpatient Evaluation Service, and then Director of the Inpatient Evaluation Unit at the Institute from 1989 through 1997. In 1995, he was appointed Director of Residency Training at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, and then in 1997, he was named Associate Director of Education for Residency Training at the University of Pennsylvania, where he coordinated the merger of the Pennsylvania Hospital Residency into the University of Pennsylvania Psychiatry Residency. He became Co-Director of Residency Training in 2008. Dr. Summers graduated from the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis, and is a faculty member of the Philadelphia Center for Psychoanalysis.
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