We are pleased to announce that Dr. Jennifer Ruiz, a staff psychiatrist with Fenway Health since 2006 who is based primarily at the South End, was awarded a Fellowship with the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) earlier this year. Following graduation from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Dr. Ruiz completed her psychiatry residency at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles followed by a two-year fellowship in psychodynamic psychotherapy through the Adams House program of Faulkner Hospital.
Since the beginning of her time at Fenway, Dr. Ruiz has been active in providing group therapy in addition to psychopharmacology management and addiction treatment support. She has led three long-term women’s interpersonal groups, co-led a suboxone treatment group, and developed and led the first CBT for Anxiety skills groups, for which she developed the manual. Dr. Ruiz also developed a group treatment manual for a prior Fenway Institute study called 40 and Forward, a peer-led group helping provide skills around dating and safer sex to gay men as they age, and led the weekly resident training “T-group” at the McLean/MGH combined program for three years.
In addition to her group therapy work, the Fellowship award took into account her extended volunteer work and leadership within the Northeastern Society for Group Psychotherapy (NSGP) and AGPA, including serving as an NSGP Board member, a chair of multiple committees including the educational program of NSGP and the Community Health Organizations and Institutions SIG at AGPA, and as co-editor of the NSGP newsletter for seven years.
Dr. Ruiz has been leading a gay men’s intimacy group at Fenway Health since 2008 and facilitates group therapy lectures and a professionalism seminar for the interns in the Behavioral Health department.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Ruiz on this Fellowship!
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