Robert M. Factor, M.D., Ph.D.

Bob Factor lives in Madison, WI. He is a Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, where he was the Director of Psychiatric Residency Education for ten years. His professional interests include community-based treatment of persons with serious and persistent mental illness; emergency and consultation psychiatry; psychotherapy; and psychiatric education. For the over 30 years, he has been involved as a consultant and expert witness with several lawsuits in state and Federal courts that have advocated for rights and improved services for persons with disabling mental illness.

He currently has a private practice of general psychiatry and psychotherapy in Madison. He spent 35 years as the Medical Director and Clinical Director of the Emergency Services Unit (ESU) of the Journey Mental Health Center (formerly known as the Mental Health Center of Dane County). ESU provides crisis intervention, resolution, and backup for all patients seen by the Center, and is available to all residents of Dane County. For 25 years, he was the Medical Director of the Community Support Program of the Madison VA Medical Center, an assertive community-based treatment team serving veterans with serious and persistent mental illness.

He received an A.B. in biology from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on ethology and the social and psychological origins of disease. He received an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, did a residency in psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, and a fellowship in community psychiatry at the Mental Health Center of Dane County and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.