Notes and News

Albany, N. Y.—Dr. Newton Bigelow, Commissioner of Mental Hygiene, announced the appointment of Dr. Bjorn Vestergaard, Danish psychiatrist, to the staff of a special research project now in progress at Rockland State Hospital. There he will serve as research scientist, assisting Dr. Nathan S. Kline, director of the Rockland project. The 32-year old psychiatrist assumed his new position upon his arrival from Denmark on May 4.

Dr. Vestergaard comes to America with a notable record in clinical psychiatry and biochemical research in his native Denmark. Since October 1949, he has served as director of biochemical research at Sct. Hans Hospital Ved Roskilde, Denmark, where he conducted biochemical and endocrinological investigations on psychiatric patients. He is the author of scientific papers on this period of his research, published both in Danish and English. Further papers are due for publication at a later date, particularly on the effect of ACTH on psychiatric patients.

Born of Danish parents in Italy in 1920, Dr. Vestergaard received his medical degree from the University of Copenhagen in 1947. He began his research work the following year while serving his rotating internship at the county hospital of Herning, Denmark, and at the University of Copenhagen. He received a Gold Medal from the University for his initial research. He continued his research in the epidemiological-medical department of the University Clinic at Aarhaus where he later served as a psychiatrist.

On April 6, 1953, the New York Neuropsychiatric Center, 312 East 15th Street, celebrated its third anniversary. It was established in 1950 by Dr. William D. Sherwood, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital; Dr. Carl Fulton Sulzberger, Chief of Clinic, and Dr. John B. Scanlan, Assistant Attending Psychiatrist.

Today its staff comprises twenty psychiatrists, one psychologist and assistant, and two psychiatric social workers,