Former President Ewald Busse Dies

Former APA President Ewald Busse, M.D., one of the pioneering figures in geriatric psychiatry, died March 7 in Durham, N.C. He was 86.

Busse was president of APA for the 1971-72 term. He was associate provost emeritus at Duke University and former dean of medical and allied health education at Duke. For 21 years beginning in 1953, Busse was chair of Duke’s psychiatry department.

When Duke honored him in 1985 by naming its new geriatric center the E.W. Busse Gerontology Building, it acknowledged his status as one of the founders of the field of geriatric psychiatry. He was a founding director of the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. In addition to APA, Busse served as president of the American Geriatrics Society, Gerontological Society of America, International Association of Gerontology, and the North Carolina Institute of Medicine.

Each year the North Carolina Division of Aging bestows the Ewald W. Busse Award for achievement in gerontological research.

Among his groundbreaking studies was the 25-year-long Duke Longitudinal Study of Aging, which identified factors that predict a longer life and marked a shift away from the traditional venue of nursing homes for studying factors associated with aging.

He is author or co-author of more than 250 scientific articles.

He was a member of both the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. ▪