For Immediate Release: Media Contact: Aaron M. Beatty Communications Officer
413.931.5245 aaron.beatty@austenriggs.net Austen Riggs Center Board of Trustees Appoints Eric M. Plakun, MD, as Medical Director/CEO
Stockbridge, MA – November 14, 2018 – The Austen Riggs Center’s Board of Trustees announced today the appointment of Eric M. Plakun, MD, as medical director/CEO.
Chair of the Austen Riggs Center Board of Trustees Lisa Raskin, PhD, remarked, “We are thrilled that Eric will be taking up the role of medical director/CEO; his unwavering commitment to the Center and demonstrated leadership throughout his distinguished career have helped to make Riggs what it is today.”
Former Medical Director/CEO Andrew J. Gerber, MD, PhD, will be pursing another professional opportunity. Dr. Gerber, who joined the Riggs staff in 2015, was instrumental in establishing several strategic initiatives in areas including human development and suicide research and education, all of which have positioned Riggs well for the future. Dr. Raskin stated, “We are grateful for Andrew’s contributions and wish him well in his future endeavors.”
Speaking about his new role, Dr. Plakun said, “I am deeply honored and excited to take on the leadership of an institution whose work and mission I feel so wholly committed to.”
About Eric M. Plakun, MD
In addition to his long professional career at the Austen Riggs Center, where he oversaw development of the continuum of care and served most recently as associate medical director, Dr. Plakun is also a leader in organized psychiatry and psychoanalysis, author of more than fifty publications, a member of several journal editorial boards, and a past member of the Harvard clinical faculty. He is a member of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Board of Trustees representing New England and Eastern Canada. Dr. Plakun has been honored as the Outstanding Psychiatrist in Clinical Psychiatry by the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society and by the American Psychoanalytic Association “for championing psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy within American psychiatry and paving the way towards a return to an individualized treatment model.” To learn more about Dr. Plakun, please visit the Riggs website.
About the Austen Riggs Center
Austen Riggs Center, a leading psychiatric hospital and residential treatment program, has been serving adults since 1919. Within an open setting, patients inhabit an intensive treatment milieu that emphasizes respectful engagement. Individual psychodynamic psychotherapy is provided four times a week by doctors on staff. The Erikson Institute for Education and Research of the Austen Riggs Center studies individuals in their social contexts through research, training, education, and outreach programs in the local community and beyond.
The Austen Riggs Center, located in Stockbridge, MA, is ranked a top ten “Best Hospital in Psychiatry” by U.S. News & World Report. For more information about its services, please call 413.298.5511 or 800.517.4447 or visit www.austenriggs.org.
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