Dr. Hughes is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry for Boston University Medical School. He has taught several courses at that medical school and has won both local and national awards for his teaching. Dr. Hughes has consulted with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on setting up national guidelines around suicidal and violent behavior and more recently with the Department of Defense. He has lectured extensively in Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America. Dr. Hughes was the column editor for Emergency Psychiatry in the APA journal of Psychiatric Services. He is a past president of the American Association of General Hospital Psychiatry and is also a past president of the American Association of Emergency Psychiatry.

Dr. Hughes received his MD from the University of Missouri School of Medicine in 1981 and completed a residency and chief residency in Psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center. He served as Director of Psychiatric Emergency Services at Tufts Medical Center and the Cambridge Hospital, what is now known as Cambridge Health Alliance, before joining the BUSM faculty in 1997.

Dr. Hughes has published numerous peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and books, on the topics of homicide and suicide. Additionally, he has served on the editorial boards of several psychiatric journals, including Psychiatric Issues in Emergency Care and Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Dr. Hughes has received several teaching awards, including the Stanley L. Robbins Award. He also has been recognized for his contributions by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Appointed Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at BUSM in 2011, Dr. Hughes focused on providing a more integrated curriculum, working with faculty to execute the new Principles Integrating Sciences and Medicine (PrISM) curriculum launched in 2015, as well as providing more opportunities for students’ clinical experiences through the creation of selectives in the third- and fourth-year curriculums. He helped establish the Office of Affiliated Sites to oversee the quality of BUSM’s clinical sites and assisted with launching BUSM’s Kaiser Permanente Regional Campus (Silicon Valley). While serving as Associate Dean, Dr. Hughes assisted in the implementation and expanded use of technology, including E*Value, SoftChalk, and ExamSoft to improve the delivery and evaluation of the medical education curriculum.