Dr. Whaley attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in 1967, and then Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, MA, in 1971, with an M.D.  Having always been oriented towards psychiatry, he entered psychiatric residency training at Tufts New England Medical Center for the next three years; the orientation of this training was primarily toward psychoanalytic oriented psychotherapy.

In 1974, Dr. Whaley first worked full time as the Assistant Medical Director and several years later as a staff psychiatrist, part time,  at Westwood Lodge Hospital, a private psychiatric hospital in Westwood, MA.  He successfully passed the board certification exam in adult psychiatry in 1976 and has, accordingly, been Board Certified since.   He began a private outpatient practice in Westwood, that became full time by 1978.  At that time, he started working in and obtaining experience in the field of Forensic Psychiatry initially as a psychiatric consultant to The Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexual Offenders at M.C.I. Bridgewater which  led to his serving as an expert witness in a number of criminal and civil cases.

During the 1970’s and 1980’s he was active in delivering psychiatric services at a local community general hospital, Norwood Hospital and in teaching medical students from Boston University School of Medicine.  He served as Chief, Department of Psychiatry at Norwood Hospital from 1984- 1990, during which time he oversaw the establishment and development of a new inpatient service.  In 1993, he and his family moved to Chatham on Cape Cod,  where he then developed a busy private outpatient psychiatric practice, treating individuals from all over the Cape, focusing  on psychotherapy & psychopharmacological interventions.  He participated in the formation and initial development of a rather unique outpatient psychiatric group practice, The Psychiatric Collaborative beginning in 1997.   He has served as President of the Southeastern Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, a branch of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, 2003- 2016.   In 2012 he was recognized as Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.  Since 2010, he has appeared as a monthly guest on the NPR show, The Point with Mindy Todd, on WCAI.