The impetus for this project is to honor and remember Bruce Hedges, an outstanding psychiatrist and extraordinary person, who died tragically in an accident while biking on New Year's Day, 2001, at age 40.  Dr. Hedges was a dedicated physician, an avid outdoorsman, a wonderful father and family man.  His gentleness, thoughtfulness, modesty, humor, perspective, wisdom, and compassion remain an inspiration.  Dr. Hedges grew up in Ohio, went to Stanford University as an undergraduate, and to Cornell University Medical College ('86).  He then trained in emergency medicine and psychiatry.  Dr. Hedges was practicing outpatient psychopharmacology in Tucson, Arizona, where his genuine, down-to-earth personal qualities, his brilliant intellectual capacities, and his great medical skills greatly helped his patients.  He was Medical Director and member of the Board of Trustees at Palo Verde Behavioral Health, and Chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee at Tucson Medical Center.  At the time of his death, the outpouring of grief among hundreds of Dr. Hedges' patients and colleagues attested to the strong impact that this understated, enlightened person had on their lives and community.  Dr. Hedges is fondly remembered in this community as well.  In thinking about a memorial to him at the New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Medical College of Cornell University (where he went to medical school), it seemed that something involving outpatient psychopharmacology/psychiatric care, and something making a real difference in the every-day life of patients and clinicians, would be most appropriate.  A behavioral health resource center emerged as a meaningful way to honor Dr. Hedges in an ongoing fashion, continuing in the spirit and nature of what he provided to patients, as a service to our community.

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