Asim Shah

MD

Board Chair

Asim A. Shah, MD, chairs the Houston Recovery Center board. He was appointed by the Mayor of Houston and confirmed by a unanimous vote of City Council.

Dr. Shah holds the Barbara & Corbin J. Robertson Jr. Chair in Psychiatry and is Executive Vice Chair and Professor of Psychiatry, Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. At Ben Taub Hospital/Harris Health System he is Chief of Psychiatry, Chief of the Division of Community Psychiatry and Director of the Mood Disorder Research Program.

His life’s work is helping people with mental illness: reducing the stigma attached to the word “mental” and making care available to people who are uninsured but need it. When he arrived at Ben Taub, the hospital did not treat substance use disorder; it was not in the schedule of benefits. Over the following years he worked to get it added.

“As a psychiatrist I know that substance use and mental illness go hand-in-hand,” he says. “My desire is to provide substance use, mental health, and psychiatric services to people who need services at the time they need services, without any stigma.”

He sees sobering centers as essential for a city the size of Houston — one of the few publicly funded places where people without insurance can be reached early, when treatment has the best chance. “Sobering centers, and programs like these, are essential needs for cities like Houston,” he says. “Together we can do more, and together we can help more and more people every day.”

Dr. Shah also serves on other boards and task forces, including as chair of Mental Health America of Greater Houston, and with Texana and The Alliance.