Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, president of Sheppard Pratt Health System, announced Thursday that he will retire.
Sharfstein, who was hired as vice president and medical director before taking over as president and CEO in 1992, said he would retire after three decades with the hospital and health system on July 1, 2016.
"It has been my privilege to lead this continuing reinvention of Sheppard Pratt with all of your help, and it has been quite a ride," he said in a statement to staff. "But, now it is time for new leadership."
Sharfstein has held several positions at the National Institute of Mental Health and is a former president of the American Psychiatric Association.
The Dartmouth College and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine graduate has taken stands on medical measures arising in the Maryland Legislature.
He supported legislation last year to make involuntary treatment of patients easier in the state, saying it lessens the burden on families desperate to help their loved ones.
In a 2013 editorial in The Sun, he argued for stronger gun control laws as a means to lower the nation's startling suicide rate. "There is a direct correlation between the availability of guns, their presence in the home, and suicide," he wrote. "Seventy-five percent of guns used in youth suicides are accessible in the home or the home of a friend."
Sheppard Pratt has grown from a single a psychiatric hospital in Towson to a health system of 38 locations throughout Maryland that offer inpatient, day hospital, intensive outpatient, outpatient and special education services.
"We have helped change the mental health landscape," Sharfstein said. "I will do everything I can to make sure that my successor has the opportunity that I have had to lead [what I think is] the best psychiatric health system in the United States."
A search committee chaired by J. Frederick Motz, a longtime hospital trustee, will be created to find a replacement for Sharfstein.
"Dr. Sharfstein has helped to shape and transform our health system, and we are confident that his legacy at Sheppard Pratt will live on for decades to come," board of trustees chairman Dr. Bryon Forbush said.
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