Norman Sussman

Dear Colleagues,

It is with great sadness that we write to let you know of the passing of our friend and colleague, Norman Sussman, MD, an esteemed member of our faculty in the Department of Psychiatry for nearly 40 years.

Norm spent the first two years of his life in a displaced persons camp in Bensheim, Germany, before emigrating to New York with his family on a U.S. Navy transport ship. A lifelong New Yorker, he spent most of his childhood in the Bronx and later moved with his family to Forrest Hills. He studied art at New York’s High School for Music and Art and majored in history at Queens College. He received his Masters of Public Administration from New York University before graduating from New York Medical College in 1975, where he also went on to complete his residency in psychiatry.

He took his first job as an attending physician at what is now NYU Grossman School of Medicine in 1980 and remained at NYU Langone his entire career, retiring in 2018 after 38 years of remarkable service. A truly gifted clinician and educator, Norm had a unique talent for expressing complex scientific and medical concepts in a format that was readily grasped and appreciated by his audience, which over the years included innumerable medical students, residents, fellows, nurse practitioners, and attending physicians. Norm accomplished this through the use of visuals which, utilizing his considerable artistic talent, he created himself. He further enhanced his presentations through his unique oratorical style, combining anecdotes based on his significant clinical experience with a wonderful storytelling ability and sense of humor. His students were simultaneously educated and entertained.

Norm was a successful clinical investigator on numerous clinical drug trials and published extensively on a broad range of subjects. With expertise in the psychopharmacologic treatment of refractory mood and anxiety disorders, including the side effects of psychiatric medications, he was a prolific lecturer and writer, including serving as editor of Primary Psychiatry for over a decade. He was one of the first psychiatrists in the country to recognize that weight gain was a potential long-term side effect of fluoxetine and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a topic he published on widely.

Throughout his career, Norm was on the medical staff at both Tisch and Bellevue Hospitals, during which time he served in a number of key roles including director of residency training, interim department chair, and associate dean of continuing medical education. He also had a private practice and late in his career saw patients at the Center for Men’s Health, many of whom came to him after years of struggling with treatment-resistant mood disorders. His expertise was also sought by fellow psychiatrists in managing their most complex and challenging patients.

For those of us who had the pleasure of knowing and working with him, Norm will be remembered most for his warmth, compassion, easygoing nature, and good humor. He will be deeply missed.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife, Sue, and his children, Rebecca and Zachary.

Sincerely,

Robert I. Grossman, MD
Dean and CEO

Steven B. Abramson, MD
Executive Vice President and Vice Dean
Education, Faculty and Academic Affairs

Charles R. Marmar, MD
Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Psychiatry
Chair, Department of Psychiatry

Arrangements by Thomas S. Lowther Funeral Home & Crematory, Vero Beach.