Duke Flags Lowered: Dr. Michael Volow, Psychiatry Emeritus Professor, Dies
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Psychiatry emeritus faculty member Dr. Michael Volow
Dr. Michael Volow, assistant professor emeritus in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, passed away at the age of 86 on Friday, Feb. 16.
Dr. Volow retired from Duke Psychiatry in 2010 after serving as a member of our faculty for 16 years. He worked primarily at the Durham VA Medical Center (VA).
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College in 1959 and graduated from New Jersey College of Medicine in 1964. He completed his psychiatry residency and fellowship at Duke University in 1972.
In the years between graduating from medical school and starting his residency at Duke, Dr. Volow served as a U.S. Navy flight surgeon, supporting Navy medicine in a number of posts in the U.S. during the Vietnam War.
After completing his psychiatry training in 1972, Dr. Volow joined the VA staff. He ran the VA’s consultation liaison service for decades, training many Duke Psychiatry residents and Duke medical students along the way. He was fascinated by unusual neuropsychiatric conditions, such as blepharospasm, psychiatric aspects of epilepsy, and frontal lobe syndromes.
In his retirement, Dr. Volow worked for a time at the Carter Clinic in Raleigh, founded by former Duke Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences faculty member James Carter, Sr., MD.
Dr. Volow is remembered as an excellent teacher whose keen eye for the nuances of the neurological exam was an inspiration to trainees and colleagues. He relished the challenge of an intricate case and was always ready to provide a curbside consult for a colleague. He was a wonderful member of our Duke Psychiatry team and will be missed by all who worked and learned with him at the VA.
