The History of Psychiatry in New Mexico 1889-1989

BOOK SUMMARY The history of psychiatry in New Mexico begins with the Territorial Legislature establishing the Insane Asylum in Las Vegas, New Mexico in 1889. It wasnt until after World War II that a few psychiatrists began to locate in New Mexico outside of the state institution and began to practice office-based psychiatry in New Mexico. When the starte legislature established the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in 1964 psychiatry began to take its place in the medical community. In 1970 it was deemed there was a sufficient number of psychiatrist in New Mexico to organize themselves into a District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association. Prior to that time the psychiatrists in New Mexico belonged to the Intermountain Psychiatric Association, a District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association that included many of the intermountain states. In the late 1960s the number of psychiatrist in the New Mexico increased exponentially with the development of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and with its focus on community psychiatry. Community mental health services were generously funded with federal grants and grew rapidly in the late 1960s and 1970s. The first community mental health center funded in New Mexico was in Albuquerque, the Bernallilo County-University of New Mexico Mental Health-Mental Retardation Center. The University of New Mexico Mental Health Center started in 1967 with an annual budget of few thousand dollars grew to over 15 million dollars by 1989. In 1977 the Childrens Psychiatric Hospital opened its door for the treatment of children with psychiatric disorders and by 1989 had an annual budget of over six million dollars. During this same time frame the University of New Mexico School of Medicines Department of Psychiatry grew rapidly. In 1964, its first year, the Department of Psychiatry had three faculty members. That number grew and by 1989 the number was just under forty tenure-track members with another forty-five with Letter of Academic Title. In 1967 the Department of Psychiatry developed a residency program in psychiatry, a four-year program that trained physicians for the specialty of psychiatry. Over the next two and a half decades the Department trained over one hundred and fifteen psychiatrists, with approximately fifty percent remaining in New Mexico to practice in their chosen field. In 1979 a Child and Adolescent Fellowship, a two year program was initiated by the Child and Adolescent Division of the Department of Psychiatry, and in the next decade graduated over two dozen child psychiatrists many who remained in the state to provide services to New Mexicos children and adolescents. During the first 50 years of psychiatry in New Mexico (1889-1939) the majority of psychiatric care was provided in the state mental institution, the New Mexico State Hospital but during the next fifty years significant changes occurred. The primary focus of psychiatric care was in the community either in outpatient care by office-based psychiatrists or in the two private institutions, Nazareth Hospital or Sandia Ranch Sanitarium. The state hospital in 1923 had 1350 beds whereas by 1989 that number of beds had dropped to around 200. This book is an attempt to trace the events of the past one hundred years that contributed to these changes.