Dr. Tamara Gay, associate professor of psychiatry, will retire at the end of June 2020 from her many years of exceptional service as a medical educator at the University of Michigan Medical School.
Dr. Gay has had a distinguished career in the Department of Psychiatry. After service on the faculty at the University of North Carolina and University of Kentucky, she joined our faculty in 1993 as lecturer. She advanced in faculty rank, rising to clinical associate professor in 2011. She has had a long-standing interest in developmental trajectories of young adults as they navigate significant milestones such as graduation from college and medical school.
In 1994 Dr. Gay co-founded and served as the first director of the U-M Medical Student Mental Health Consultation Service. In 1996, she co-founded a similar program for physicians in training, the U-M House Officer Mental Health Program. In 1998, Dr. Gay was selected as director of the psychiatry clerkship. The same year, she joined the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry (ADMSEP), and was elected to multiple leadership positions including president in 2013.
In 2012, Dr. Gay was selected as the Assistant Dean for Student Services at the U-M Medical School where she supported medical students with challenging personal and life stressors as they intersected with the medical education program. Her portfolio as Assistant Dean has been large: responsible for the oversight of financial aid, registration, scheduling, learning and disability issues, career planning, participating in the National Residency Matching Program, student professionalism issues, and oversight of the learning environment.
Dr. Gay’s scholarly work includes studying various teaching methods and techniques in busy clinical settings, and the challenges of treating depression in house officers. She has been a valued teacher, supervisor and mentor and the department of psychiatry most recently benefited from her work in our ambulatory clinic.
We would like to thank Dr. Gay deeply for all she has done for our institution and its learners. We wish her best wishes on her new, exciting journey!
