Christopher J. McDougle, MD

Albert Eugene Sterne Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Indiana University
Indianapolis,IN
Undergraduate: Valparaiso University (1981)
Medical School: Indiana University School of Medicine (1986)
Residency (psychiatry): Yale New Haven Hospital (1990)
Fellowship (child and adolescent psychiatry): Yale Child Study Center (1995)

Why did you choose Yale New Haven for your residency?

When I went to medical school in the mid 1980s, I knew I wanted to be a psychiatrist. That was the decade of the brain, when there was tremendous hope and enthusiasm about discovering the causes of mental illness and developing new treatments. The people doing that work were all together at Yale, including Drs. George Heninger, Dennis Charney, Larry Price and Wayne Goodman. I met with Dr. Charney, the director, and we connected, and I ended up on that unit the first six months of my PGY 2 year.

After your fellowship and seven years as a faculty member, why did you leave Yale?

The culture at Yale was: We're here to develop world leaders, and we want you to leave Yale — the majority, anyway — and go on to spread the word. Over time, many of those people have moved on and into leadership positions in psychiatry across the country. If I hadn't gone to Yale to do my residency, I would not have come close to achieving what I have in my career.