Donald Kornfeld, M.D.

Dr. Donald Kornfeld has been a member of the faculty of the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons since 1960. He served as the Associate Dean, Faculty of Medicine from 1985-1988 and as Associate Dean and Director of Continuing Medical Education from 1988-2008. He was Director of the Psychiatric Consultation/Liaison Service at the Presbyterian Hospital from 1965- 1999. Kornfeld served as Chairman of the New York State Psychiatric Institute Institutional Review Board from 1979 to 1985 and the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center from 1988 to 2002. He has been a member of the Presbyterian Hospital Ethics Committee since its inception in 1986. In 1986, in association with Dr. Richard Sloan, he established the Behavioral Medicine Service, which incorporates behavioral psychology in the treatment of medical/surgical illness, teaching, and clinical and psychophysiological research.

In association with colleagues, he has published significant research on such topics as psychiatric complications of cardiac surgery; psychiatric aspects of intensive care units; sleep loss in interns; clinical and cost benefits of liaison psychiatry; the Type A behavior pattern; psychiatric aspects of radiotherapy; and clinical ethics. Kornfeld has served as President of the American Psychosomatic Society, received the Hackett Award for outstanding achievement in psychosomatic medicine from the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Liaison Psychiatry. 

Kornfeld received his psychiatric training at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center/New York Psychiatric Institute and is a graduate of Columbia University Psychoanalytic Institute.