Renée Binder, MD, and John Sikorski, MD, have been named recipients of the Royer Award for outstanding contributions to psychiatry.
The award, which includes a substantial cash award and a framed certificate, goes to two psychiatrists every other year - one who is a community-based practitioner and one who is an academic psychiatrist.
The Royer Award for Excellence in Academic Psychiatry will be awarded to Binder, a longtime faculty member of the Department of Psychiatry who currently serves as an associate dean for academic affairs for the UCSF School of Medicine. Binder is recognized internationally for her work in violence prediction, forensic psychiatry and organized psychiatry. Her research focuses on violence risk assessment of mentally ill patients, the relationship between mental illness and violence and the criminalization of the mentally ill.
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Renée Binder |
At UCSF, Binder has taken leadership roles in a career that has spanned directing the Adult Inpatient Service at Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute to creating and directing the Psychiatry and the Law Program. Binder's numerous contributions to the University also encompass faculty and student welfare and the status of women. In addition, Binder has served both as president of the Northern California Psychiatric Society and the California Psychiatric Association, and nationally as chair of the American Psychiatric Association Council on Psychiatry and the Law and president of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.
The Royer Award for Excellence in Community Psychiatry will be awarded to Sikorski, a clinical professor of psychiatry, for his dedicated service to society and his support for the rights of the children he treats. For four decades, he has championed innovative community-based programs, and has trained and encouraged a large number of child psychiatrists. Sikorski most recently served on the San Francisco Behavioral Health Task Force, and helped guide planning for funding services through the Mental Health Services Act for children and families with serious emotional disturbances.
He has been the chair of the Psychiatric Services Committee of the San Francisco Medical Society for nearly two decades, and he is an internationally sought-after lecturer.
Oakland physician J. Elliott Royer established the award at UCSF with a generous endowment, upon his death in 1962.
