Ambulatory Psychiatry

Ambulatory Psychiatry Services

The Division of Outpatient Psychiatry includes outpatient mental health services at the Brigham Psychiatric Specialties Clinic at 221 Longwood Avenue, the Spanish Clinic at Phyllis Jen Center for Primary Care, the Fish Center at 850 Boylston Street and providers at Faulkner Hospital.  As well, there are mental health services at our two community health centers, the Southern Jamaica Plain Center and Brookside Community Health Center. 

Brigham Psychiatric Specialties at 221 Longwood Avenue provides comprehensive evaluations and care to patients 18 and older.  We believe that the best treatment recommendations occur when we have a complete understanding of each individual's medical, cognitive, social, and psychological issues and how they impact one's functioning.  Thus, we encourage our patients to allow us to confer with their other clinicians, family and significant others when it makes sense.  We also believe that working in a collaborative, team-based fashion yields the best outcomes.  We see the patient as an active participant in his or her care, and think psychiatric treatment is in the service of optimizing one’s functioning, sense of satisfaction in life and capacity to adapt to the life’s stress.   We work together with our patients to design a personalized treatment plan with these general goals in mind. These priorities are outlined in our Mission Statement:

Vision:  to create an innovative model for quality mental health care of patients in an academic medical center setting.

Mission:  to provide our patients at BWF compassionate, timely and evidence-based treatment, to teach our future leaders, and to advance the field of psychiatry

Core Values:

Respect:  We achieve the best outcomes when we foster collegial staff relationships and deliver care that is patient-centered. We strive to continue dismantling the stigma associated with mental health problems and their treatment.

Collaboration:  The patient is an essential teammate in his or her care.  Treatment is optimized when patients' care providers can communicate easily and coordinate their efforts.

Education: Learning from our patients, partnering with researchers and teaching our trainees are essential for delivering the best care possible and preparing future generations of superb clinicians.

Referrals:  Brigham and Faulkner Hospital (BW/F) patients and their providers may call us at 617-732-6753 to speak with one of our triage clinicians. It is best, whenever possible, if we speak with patients directly.  We are available to provide consultations to all patients with active ongoing care at BW/F and to all women with psychiatric problems related to their periods, pregnancy, or menopause (“change of life”) regardless of where they have their medical care.  We specialize in treatments for psychiatric conditions in people who have major medical illness and otherwise provide short-term stabilization and therapies designed to assist individuals achieve their highest possible level of functioning

The Initial Evaluation: The evaluation process is generally completed within 1-2 visits.  If the patient is seen by one of our trainees, an attending psychiatrist will be involved in that evaluation and usually meets face to face with the patient at the time of the initial visit.  When the evaluator and patient agree that a course of treatment is indicated, they will then discuss where that treatment will take place.  Individuals who are relatively well medically will be provided referrals when possible in the community.  During active phases of psychiatric illness, our clinicians will provide support and treatment until the individual has established their treatment elsewhere.  A comprehensive consultation note will be sent to the referring provider and will include treatment recommendations when appropriate.

Treatment: Following the initial evaluation, patients who will receive care in our clinic will be engaged in a treatment planning process.  He or she will work with the treatment team to identify the goals of treatment and decide upon how to best achieve those goals.  The treatment we provide here is evidence-based psychopharmacologic care and psychotherapy.  We offer individual and group psychotherapy with an emphasis on skills-based training.  Examples of this include cognitive and behavioral therapies, mindfulness-based therapy, interpersonal therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy.  We have limited capacity for long-term psychodynamic-based and supportive psychotherapies within the clinic and will refer to private practitioners for that when clinically indicated.  We adhere to recovery-based models of care which emphasize achieving ones highest possible level of functioning with the individual assuming an active role in his or her care.

Teaching: As part of our academic mission, we are involved in the training of medical and psychiatry residents and periodically work with trainees from local psychology and social work graduate programs. We are a primary site for training residents from the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program. These trainees are a part of our outpatient team, are closely supervised by our attending physicians and will always keep patients apprised of their training status and the name of their attending supervisor. 

 Research: We are increasingly working side by side with researchers and may offer patients opportunities to participate in clinical studies.  While receiving treatment here would never be contingent on participating in any research protocol, we do believe that working closely with our colleagues engaged in research and teaching the next generation of clinicians does help us provide the most evidence-based, state of the art care possible.

Faculty and Staff:     

Jay Baer, MD:  Medical Director of Brigham Psychiatric Services, Attending Psychiatrist
Jane Erb, MD:  Director of Clinicial and Educational Initiatives, Attending Psychiatrist
John Grimaldi, MD:  Attending Psychiatrist, HIV Psychiatry Specialist
Michaela Millott, MD:  Attending Psychiatrist
Laura Miller, MD:  Vice-Chair of Department of Psychiatry, Women’s Mental Health Specialist  
Geena Athappilly, MD: Attending Women's Mental Health Psychiatrist, Geriatric Psychiatrist
Erica Veguilla, MD:  Women’s Mental Health, Addictions and Trauma Specialist
Pam Wiegartz, PhD:  Director of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Services
Megan Oser, PhD: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Psychologist
James Cartreine, PhD: Psychologist
Laura Safar, MD: Attending Psychiatrist, Neuropsychiatrist
Gaston Baslet, MD: Attending Psychiatrist, Neuropsychiatrist
Catherine Gonzalez, MD: Attending Psychiatrist
Emily Benedetto, LCSW: Program Manager for the Depression Center
Rebecca Brooks, LICSW:  Staff Social Worker
Fiona Kaul-Connolly, LICSW:  Staff Social Worker
Melanie Renaud, LICSW:  Addictions Specialist
Jaclyn Secter, LICSW:  Director of Triage Service
Lisa Irwin: Practice Manager
Staisha Stephens-Brown: Practice Coordinator
Marissa Stolfi: Mental Health Resource Specialist
Amanda Wells: Billing/Managed Care Coordinator
Emilia Ortiz:  Billing/Managed Care Coordinator
Brittany Kane:  Practice Assistant

For further information or to schedule an evaluation, please call us at 617-732-6753.