To his clients, he was Dr. C.
To his students, he was simply Richard.
Dr. Richard Christensen, a UF psychiatry professor, was known for his compassion and ability to put others before himself. This held true this Thanksgiving when he spent the holiday volunteering for Habitat for Humanity.
While on the Habitat for Humanity build, the 59-year-old was killed after a car struck him on Nov. 26 in Zambia.
For the past 15 years, Christensen was the director of behavioral health services at the Sulzbacher Center in Jacksonville. The center provides health, housing and income services for homeless people. It serves about 360 people a day.
Cindy Funkhouser, president and CEO of the Sulzbacher Center, said Christensen calmed people when he stepped into a room. Whenever a situation with those in the shelter got out of control, he was called.
"He was a one-of-a-kind person," she said. "There will never be anyone like him."
She said she first met Christensen while riding in the center’s mobile Hope Van, which he used to ride on twice a week to beaches and highway overpasses to bring the clinic to Jacksonville’s homeless population.
When Christensen stopped the van, he sat down on the sidewalk next to people and just talked to them, she said.
"To see him down on the ground, I will never forget it," she said in between sobs. "It made me cry then, and it makes me cry now."
Dr. Robert Averbuch, a UF Health psychiatrist, met Christensen in the late 1990s as a third-year medical student at UF.
Christensen wasn’t like the other professors, Averbuch said. Richard, as he would insist his students call him, had a clever wit.
One day in class, Averbuch said he was learning about Florida’s Baker Act, a Florida statute that allows people to be involuntarily institutionalized for up to three days if they thought to be a threat to those around them.
"‘Dr. Christensen, can you Baker Act your friends?’" Averbuch said he asked.
"Maybe your friends, Rob," Christensen had responded jokingly.
Averbuch said when he heard of Christensen’s death, he was stunned and cried. He had been covering for him at the Sulzbacher Center while Christensen was in Zambia.
"Even on vacation, he was doing good," he said. "It still hasn’t really sunk in."
He is survived by his wife, Kathy; his son, Chris; and his sister, Mary Anne.
According to Funkhouser, the Sulzbacher Center in Jacksonville will hold a memorial service at its campus today at 9 a.m. A visitation will be held Sunday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Jacksonville Beach, said Averbuch.
Funeral services will be held Monday at 11 a.m. at the church, said Funkhouser.
