JohnJ.IwucMD

Summary

• Since 1985, I have been taking care of hospitalized adolescent psychiatric patients who have either been referred by courts or by other hospitals. I use every ethical means to try to get them back on track, including medications, psychotherapy and systemic interventions. The program first opened at the Westboro State Hospital in November 1985 when I admitted the first patient. We moved in June 2010 to the Worcester State Hospital when Westboro closed. In October 2012 we moved into the brand new Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital. Throughout this time I have supervised 3rd year medical students doing their psychiatry clerkships, 4th year medical students doing adolescent inpatient psychiatry electives, and some psychiatry residents and child psychiatry fellows. It has been a long road but I am still working full time. I think medications are often needed to help stabilize the patient's mood and thinking, talking therapies are still very useful to connect with them, cognitive approaches can be very helpful in restructuring their ways of processing information, psychodynamic principles are still essential to understand why people say and do things that don't make sense, and family / systems issues still need attention. I think adolescence is still a difficult time for some kids, even more so than when I went through it. It is one of the later best times in life to readjust a life trajectory, but it is never to late to adjust. I do not see any outpatients at this time.