University of Louisville psychiatry professor Allan Josephson, M.D., has been named recipient of the 2009 Wayne E. Oates Award for exceptional leadership and service in mental health and pastoral care.

The award is bestowed annually by The Wayne E. Oates Institute, a Louisville-based non-profit that promotes collaborative and compassionate medical care using an approach that considers the whole person.

Josephson was among 10 nominees from across the nation to be considered for this year’s Oates Award. He is the first psychiatrist to receive the honor, which is sponsored jointly by the institute and the Long Run Baptist Association.

Josephson, chief of the Division of Child, Adolescent and Family Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of Louisville School of Medicine, also is chief executive officer of the Bignham Clinic at UofL.

He has consulted and published extensively throughout his career, with more than 90 papers, abstracts and book chapters to his credit. Josephson sits on the editorial board of Family Process and is co-chair of the family committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. His research interests include family therapy, child development and the integration of religion and spirituality in psychiatry. His co-edited volume, “Handbook of Spirituality and Worldview in Clinical Practice,” is used in psychiatry residency education throughout the United States.

The Oates Award is named in honor of the late Dr. Wayne E. Oates, a pastoral counselor and prolific author in the fields of psychology of religion, pastoral care and pastoral counseling. Oates coined the term “workaholic,” which is now firmly entrenched in the English lexicon. Oates also was a member of the faculty in UofL's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the 1970s and '80s.

Josephson will receive the award during a banquet scheduled for Oct. 8 at Broadway Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. He also will deliver a keynote address titled "Clinical Truth and Spiritual Truth: Are They the Same?"

For more information, visit www.oates.org or call (502) 459-2370.