Gary J. Kennedy, MD

Gary J. Kennedy, MD, is Director, Geriatric Psychiatry and Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Training Program and Vice Chair for Education and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Montefiore Einstein. His clinical focus centers on depression and dementia, caregiver support and holocaust survivors. He also teaches nursing homes and collaborates with community-based agencies.

After obtaining his Bachelor of Arts in biology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1970, Dr. Kennedy earned his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1975. He remained there to complete a psychiatry residency in 1979 before moving to Montefiore to complete a psychobiology research fellowship in psychosomatic medicine in 1981. Following this, Dr. Kennedy completed a geriatric psychiatry fellowship at Montefiore in 1983.

Building on his clinical focus, Dr. Kennedy’s research is focused on cardiac arrhythmias, the epidemiology of depression and dementia, mental health care in nursing homes and primary care sites and in the community. He has a longstanding interest in improving communication between healthcare providers, especially around issues of depression and dementia care for both patients and their families. Dr. Kennedy’s work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed citations, and he has considerable experience in the evaluation of research applications as well as mentoring new investigators.

Dr. Kennedy has won many awards for his work, including the Leo and Julia Forchheimer Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. In 2023, he was named in America’s Most Honored Doctors by The American Registry and in Castle Connolly’s Top Doctors.