|
We would like to honor our colleague and one of the early members of VPSG from its inaugural days.
Dr. Douglas Betts passed away March 30th, 2023, from complications associated with COVID. Dr Betts was an Assistant Professor in the UVM Department of Psychiatry for many years and taught residents as a psychotherapy supervisor and Balint Group leader. He served as Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, having completed his Bachelors at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, and his M.D. At Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He went on to internship and residency in Canada before coming to the states and settling in Burlington in the 1980s. Douglas and his wife, Carol, also held a monthly analytic study group at their home on South Prospect Street. Bill Butler, Thomas Gazda, Bruce Gibbard, and Sharon Williams Dennett (who all trained in Montreal at the Quebec English Canadian Institute and Society) along with Bert Francke who trained at the William Allison White in NYC, were among those few analysts in Vermont who worked together to teach small psychoanalytic study groups in the community. This was all prior to forming VPSG as a local IPA training opportunity in the late 2009. When VPSG formed, Douglas was one of its early members where he joined in teaching the first class, attended conferences, and famously presented to our then members a wonderful talk on Salvador Dahli. His wide-ranging psychoanalytic interests and his dedication to psychiatry and psychoanalysis were a part of his near boundless energy and enthusiasm. Those of us who learned from Dr. Betts as a supervisor, colleague, enthusiastic student of psychoanalysis and knew him as a dedicated psychoanalyst, working with adults, children and families will miss him and his enthusiasm for all things therapeutic and psychoanalytic. We honor what he brought to the community writ large and to VPSG in its early days. We are humble in the face of his aging and passing and deeply grateful for his contributions. Sharon Williams Dennett |
Vertical Divider
Douglas H. Betts
1934-2023 We find a place for what we lose 
The Persistence of Memory
Salvador Dali, 1931 |
David VanBuskirk
1933-2019 May I be alive when I die 
|
David VanBuskirk MD, a beloved member of VPSG, passed away on November 4th, 2019. Less than three weeks earlier, he had attended the VPSG 10th Anniversary Soirée, delighting in the occasion, the topic, and his colleagues. Vibrant as ever, he asked a thoughtful and thought-provoking question to the speaker, revealing the wisdom of a seasoned clinician. Dave was a deep thinker and a humble soul who enjoyed sharing his ideas and expertise as much as he did learning from others. Brief Biography Dave graduated from Yale University and Harvard Medical School. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1957 to 1959, then was assistant and chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts Mental Health Center from 1962 to 1964. He completed psychoanalytic training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, graduating in 1971. He was associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Tufts Medical School, 1968 to 1978, and served on the faculty of Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and at Dartmouth Medical School. Dave was a nationally recognized expert on intensive services for seriously emotionally disturbed children. He joined the faculty of the UVM Medical School in 1991 where he added a psychodynamic perspective to the child and adolescent psychiatry department. He shared his knowledge, scholarship, experience, and compassion with medical students, residents, colleagues and countless others through his many programs, seminars and publications. His collaborations with (and advocacy for) the Vermont Department of Health and the Vermont Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, amongst other providers of mental health services for children, was greatly appreciated. |
Dave, the photographer, on Machu Picchu. Dave was a masterful photographer who spent time over the course of decades supporting traditional textiles and weaving as an economic boost for a remote Peruvian village.
Dave's photograph of an Inca child.
|