On July 1, 1998, Carolyn Bauer Robinowitz, M.D., was named academic dean of the Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. She was the first woman psychiatrist to become dean of a U.S. medical school and one of nine women deans among the nation's 125 medical schools. A physician who specializes in child and adolescent psychiatry, Dr. Robinowitz has taught part-time and served as a senior consultant to medical and educational organizations and institutions.
Carolyn Landeck Bauer was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1938, and graduated from Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1959. She received her doctor of medicine degree from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1964, and pursued pediatric and general psychiatry training at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. She completed a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C., serving as chief fellow in child psychiatry in 1968 and 1969.
After completing her postdoctoral training, Dr. Robinowitz was appointed chief of the Physician Training Section in the Continuing Education Branch of Manpower and Training Programs at the National Institutes of Health, where she was also a training officer from 1969 to 1970. She then moved to Florida to take up a position as director of the Community Mental Health Center at the University of Miami School of Medicine and director of psychiatry at the university's Mailman Center for Child Development, from 1970 to 1972. She held faculty positions in pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of Miami School of Medicine from 1970 to 1972, and went on to become a consultant for Goddard College from 1973 to 1975.
In 1976, Dr. Robinowitz became director of the American Psychiatric Association in Washington, D.C., a position she held until 1986. She was the first woman to be named director of the association's Office of Education. She also held other positions with the association, including senior deputy medical director and chief operating officer from 1986 to 1994. In that role, she managed a staff of 200 to coordinate the efforts of more than 50,000 psychiatrists. Dr. Robinowitz concentrated on faculty development and led a program designed to promote collaboration between state mental health programs and academic psychiatry departments. From 1986 to 1994 she was also training program director for the American Psychiatric Association-National Institute of Mental Health Education Project.
Dr. Robinowitz served as clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and child health and development at the George Washington University School of Medicine from 1982 to 1995, and returned to that position in 2001. She has also been a senior lecturer in psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences since 1983.
After joining the faculty at Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1995 as the school's associate dean and later, academic dean from 1998 to 2000, Dr. Robinowitz led efforts to incorporate new teaching methods including computer-based learning, evidence-based medicine and cultural competency training. As clinical professor of psychiatry, she was responsible for the academic and professional development of medical students from admission through graduation. "One of the things about which I am most pleased at Georgetown," Dr. Robinowitz has written, "was my initiating an informal parental leave for medical students in which the new student parent spent a month on 'early childhood development,' a practicum in which she or he... observed herself or himself as a parent."
Throughout her career in education, Dr. Robinowitz has continued to practice medicine. Since leaving her full-time academic role she has continued her clinical practice, teaches, and consults. She is married to Dr. Max Robinowitz, and the couple have two sons.
Dr. Robinowitz has held key leadership positions in a variety of medical organizations. She was the first woman to serve as president of both the Council of Medical Specialty Societies and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. In addition, Dr. Robinowitz served as president for the Association of Academic Psychiatry, the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, and the American College of Psychiatrists. She was a member of the executive committee of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and the American Board of Medical Specialties. For the Association of American Medical Colleges she served on both the Council of Deans and the Council of Academic Societies.