Dr. Stuart R Edelson

Dr. Stuart Roy Edelson, age 89, passed away on January 3, 2023 in New York City after a valiant struggle with cancer. Known to his family and many friends as “Ron” or “Ronnie,” he was the son of the late David and Anna Edelson. Dr. Edelson was born on July 6, 1933, in East New York. In 1956 he married Phyllis Merle Fahrie, whom he had met several summers earlier at Lake Peekskill where he was a lifeguard and she was a camp counselor; Phyllis and Ron were married for sixty years until her death in 2016, and raised their three sons first in New York City and then in Chappaqua, New York.

A hardworking student who persevered through various challenges to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from NYU The Heights in 1955, and with honors from the University of Louisville Medical School in June of 1959, Dr. Edelson went on to have a distinguished 62-year career in psychiatry, retiring from private practice just last year at the age of 88. After completing his residency in psychiatry at New York Hospital, Westchester Division, in 1963 Dr. Edelson became the Chief Psychiatrist at the Langley Airforce Base in Virginia, where he treated servicemembers and dependents and ran his first therapy group. Upon his return to New York in 1965, Dr. Edelson established a private practice of psychiatry in both New York City and Westchester which spanned more than five decades, through which he treated and helped countless patients from all walks of life. He also maintained an active group therapy approach in his private practice for decades. In 1965 he became an assistant psychiatrist to outpatients at the Payne Whitney Clinic, teaching residents as a member of the voluntary staff.

He moved to the Westchester Division of New York Hospital in 1975, where he ran weekly experiential groups for first year residents, a program that he continued to run for twenty years. Before stepping down from New York Hospital as Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Dr. Edelson was awarded the voluntary teacher of the year award in 1992 and 2001. A highly disciplined individual with a tremendous work ethic and sense of responsibility, he always kept a strong focus on his family, and was a very present and involved father and grandfather. He also highly valued his many strong and long-lived friendships.

Dr. Edelson is survived by his three sons Maurice, Andrew, and Glenn Fahrie Edelson; daughters-in-law Jennifer Altman and Natalia Edelson, and grandchildren Rachel, Benjamin, Nathaniel, Ammie, Jesse, and Matthew