Gregory L. Fricchione, MD
Gregory Fricchione MD has been on faculty at Harvard Medical School (HMS) since 1993 and is a Professor of Psychiatry at HMS. He first came to Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in 1982 as a psychosomatic medicine fellow. Since July 2002 he has been Associate Chief of Psychiatry at MGH and Director of the Division of Psychiatry and Medicine. He directs a large staff of attending psychiatrists and psychosomatic medicine fellows taking care of the psychiatric problems of over 5000 medically and surgically ill patients each year. In 2000, he joined the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, while on leave of absence from Harvard Medical School (HMS). Prior to this, he was Director of Medical Psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Fricchione received his M.D. from New York University School of Medicine in 1978. He is board certified in psychiatry and has added qualifications in psychosomatic medicine. In addition to his clinical experience in general hospital psychiatry, Dr. Fricchione has been committed to medical education. Presently he is Director of the Psychosomatic Medicine Fellowship at MGH. He has taught in the medical schools at New York University, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the University of Auckland in New Zealand and at Emory University as well as at HMS. Dr. Fricchione has been an active researcher in psychosomatic medicine and has made contributions to the treatment of patients with catatonia and to the management of cardiac patients who suffer from co-morbid psychiatric conditions. He is the author of over 140 peer-reviewed articles and is a co-author of the MGH Handbook on General Hospital Psychiatry (2010), Catatonia; From Psychopathology to Neurobiology (2004) and The Heart-Mind Connection (2005). He is also the author of a recent book from the Johns Hopkins University Press titled Compassion and Healing in Medicine and Society. On the Nature and Uses of Attachment Solutions to Separation Challenges (2011).
He serves on the Mental Health Task Force of the Carter Center and on the Board of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving. He was a consultant to Ethiopian Public Health Training Initiative and is a reviewer of the Mental Health Strategy for that country. From 2003 to 2009 he was the founding Director of the MGH Chester M. Pierce Division of Global Psychiatry and serves as a senior scientist with the Division now under the direction of Dr David Henderson. In 2006 he became Director of the Benson Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at MGH succeeding Dr Herbert Benson. This Institute has clinical, educational and research missions to improve medical care at the mind body interface and to promote health and prevent stress related illnesses. Its research arm has a focus on Clinical and Social Neuroscience with particular attention to genomic models. With regard to post traumatic stress in the military population, he has liaisoned with the Red Sox Foundation/MGH Homebase Program and has consulted with the National Intrepid Center of Excellence and the US Naval Medical Center in San Diego.