William C. (Will) Torrey, MD, has been named chair of the Department of Psychiatry for Dartmouth Health and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, a role he has held on an interim basis since 2020.
This appointment comes in the midst of a national and regional mental health and addiction care crisis. Torrey’s wide-ranging experience in addressing psychiatric population health needs through advocacy, clinical programming, educational initiatives, and research, combined with his drive for improvement, will advance Dartmouth Health and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth’s positions as leaders in education, care delivery, and research in the field of psychiatry.
Torrey will have responsibility for the overall strategic direction, clinical operations and management of the Department of Psychiatry, and the delivery of psychiatric services across the Dartmouth Health system. In addition, as the Department’s academic leader, Torrey will be responsible for the growth and development of Psychiatry’s already extensive research offerings as well as advancing its educational offerings, which include teaching and training medical students, residents, fellows, psychologists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, masters prepared licensed mental health clinicians, faculty development and community education.
Torrey majored in religion at Dartmouth College and graduated from Harvard Medical School before coming back to the Upper Valley to train in Psychiatry at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Torrey joined the Geisel faculty upon graduation in 1989. Torrey took over the leadership of the Department of Psychiatry’s clinical services in 2003, serving as Vice Chair for Clinical Services until 2020. As part of that role, he had the experience in 2020 of partnering with state leaders to safe-guard the health of patients at New Hampshire Hospital, New Hampshire’s only state hospital, as COVID rolled into the state. Torrey began his career at West Central Behavioral Health, the region’s academic community mental health center, serving as its Medical Director from 1994 until 2007.
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, serves patients across New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,300 providers in nearly every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. Its network of hospitals, outpatient centers, clinics and home care facilities, spans a broad geographical area. Year after year, DHMC is named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, northern New England’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of less than than 60 total nationally; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital (Children’s Hospital at DHMC/CHaD) and more than 20 locations around the region; eight member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont, Hampstead, and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Dartmouth Health Home Care; Dartmouth Health Connected Care Center for Telehealth, serving patients as far away as Texas; and more than 30 primary and multi-specialty clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its partnership with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials with international impact. Dartmouth Health and its more than 16,000 employees are committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in the communities it serves and to providing every patient with exceptional, state-of-the-art, personalized care. Learn more at dartmouth-health.org.