10/23/2015
OPPA mourns the passing of Roslyn Seligman, MD, its first woman president
The OPPA was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Roslyn Seligman, MD, professor emerita in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience for the University of Cincinnati, on Oct. 15th. She was 80 years old.
Dr. Seligman was born in Augusta, Georgia, and was valedictorian of her high school class in Claxton, Georgia. Following graduation from the University of Georgia in 1957, she attended the Medical College of Georgia, graduating in 1961. She served her internship at Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago and completed specialty training in general psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry and community psychiatry at the UC College of Medicine from 1962 to 1967. She joined the College of Medicine faculty in 1967 as an instructor in child psychiatry in what was then the Department of Psychiatry and rose to full professor status in 2007. She became an emerita professor in 2011.
Dr. Seligman’s expertise included general psychiatry; child, adolescent and family psychiatry; forensic psychiatry; psychotherapy and psychopharmacology; and diagnostic and therapeutic matters. She served as a consultant to adolescent medicine of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, the Cincinnati Center for Developmental Disabilities and the Shriners Hospitals for Children–Cincinnati.
Dr. Seligman was the first woman to serve as president of the Cincinnati Psychiatric Society (1975-76) and the first woman to serve as president of the Ohio Psychiatric Physicians Association (1981-82). She served many years as one of Ohio's Representatives to the APA Assembly and she was a pioneer in advancing leadership opportunities for women in psychiatry.
From 1967 to 1972, she served on the Executive Committee of Shriners Hospitals for Children–Cincinnati. She was also a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Life Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Services were held Sunday, Oct. 18, at Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Remembrances may be made to Autism Speaks Georgia Chapter, Suite 445, 900 Circle 75 Parkway, Atlanta, Georgia 30339.