Dr. Oscar Hills Steps into Leadership Role at Austen Riggs Center
STOCKBRIDGE — Dr. Oscar Hills has assumed the role of medical director and CEO of the Austen Riggs Center, effective July 1. His arrival comes at a critical juncture for the psychiatric residential treatment center as well as a moment of dramatic change in the field of behavioral healthcare.
Hills was selected following a national search that began in January 2025 and attracted candidates from across the United States and abroad. He succeeds Dr. Edward Shapiro, who served as medical director and CEO since January 2025 and previously held the role from 1991 to 2011.
Hills brings a combination of clinical depth and institutional leadership to Riggs. For more than 14 years, he directed the Psychiatric Emergency Room and Acute Psychiatric Services at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System’s West Haven campus, overseeing inpatient, emergency, residential, and consultation-liaison services in a high-acuity environment.
He is an associate clinical professor of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, a certified psychoanalyst, and a training and supervising analyst — a background that reflects a sustained commitment to the kind of depth-oriented care that defines Riggs. His work has also engaged developments in neuroscience, complexity theory, and technology, bringing both clinical rigor and a broader institutional perspective to his leadership.
In the months leading up to his start, Hills made a point of listening carefully to staff, board members, and others with deep knowledge of Riggs and its mission. That listening has been deliberate, shaped by an awareness that the current environment in behavioral health is both challenging and consequential. Consolidation driven by private equity, workforce shortages, evolving reimbursement models, and shifting expectations around access and outcomes are reshaping the field in ways that have direct implications for institutions that are committed to longer-term, depth-oriented care, as Riggs is.
Hills’ immediate priorities include the search for a chief financial and operations officer, a role he views as integral to Riggs’ ability to move forward with both financial strength and operational resilience. The process, which is in its advanced stages, has attracted numerous talented and knowledgeable candidates. Building on that, he will also engage in a center-wide initiative to develop a strategic plan that is grounded in Riggs’ core mission while charting a realistic and forward-looking course.
“The months before my arrival gave me something invaluable: time and the opportunity to listen. What I heard from staff, board members, and others confirmed both the challenges facing Riggs and the extraordinary commitment of the people who sustain it,” Hills said. “The environment we are operating in is demanding, but Riggs offers something that cannot be replicated: depth, time, and serious engagement with the complexity of human experience. My goal is to understand this sophisticated institution fully, to see what is essential and must be preserved, and where we must adapt and grow, so that Riggs can not only endure, but also continue to thrive as a place that does a kind of work that is genuinely rare in American behavioral healthcare.”