Lifetime Achievement Award
Jerome Rogoff, MD

 

Dr. Rogoff, a Detroit, Michigan native, got his first taste of the Northeast in 1960 as an undergraduate at Harvard College. He returned to the Midwest for medical school at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, but soon set his roots in the Boston area where he has contributed mightily as a mentoring psychiatrist for the past 40+ years.

In reflecting back over his long illustrious career Dr. Rogoff singles out what he hopes has been a major contribution to the field : teaching the principles of psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, and demonstrating how to utilize these tools in the practice of Forensic Psychiatry in multiple treatment and evaluative settings: Inpatient, Outpatient and Consultative. He fondly recalls being on the ground floor in helping to develop the Faulkner Hospital Adams House psychotherapy Fellowship, and teaching more than two generations of residents at Mass Mental Health Center, and Westwood Lodge Hospital as a faculty member at Harvard and Tufts Medical Schools.

Equally important has been his work within organized psychiatry as a member of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Boston Psychoanalytic Society, and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. He has been extremely active in each of the above organizations by holding office, participating in committees, and helping to set policy for the organizations. He has also been vocal on their behalf at critical moments during public discussions.

The Massachusetts Psychiatric Society has had the great fortune of having Dr. Rogoff’s contributions as President, Councilor, Committee Chair of the Nominating, Public / Private Hospital Interface, Inpatient Directors, and Awards Committees. He was elected to be a Representative to the Assembly of the APA. Within the American Psychiatric Association he has been an Area 1 ( New England and Eastern Canada ) Deputy Representative and Representative as well as member, Executive Committee of the Assembly. Other APA offices include Chair, Corresponding Committee on Confidentiality, and Member, Task Force to Revise Ethics Annotations. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow.

He has served as Forensic specialist at the City, County, State and Federal levels. He has been a regular reviewer for the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Dr. Rogoff takes pleasure in having been a Founding Member and Director of the Law and Psychiatry Resource Center, P.C., Boston. He is equally pleased to have contributed to the community as a member of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Boston, Psychiatry Team for many years. Additionally, he has been very active on the National Innocence Project that works to exonerate innocent individuals by providing DNA evidence and proper representation upon appeal. He is also very active on the National Center for Prosecutor Integrity, which helps to insure that those charged receive fairer treatment by those who prosecute the case.

One of his colleagues describes Dr. Rogoff as follows: “His work has spanned multiple crucial roles: clinical and administrative; he has created a vastly popular Inpatient clinical service of the highest quality and caliber. He has also contributed to outpatient psychiatry by offering brilliant and sophisticated treatment to a wide range of psychiatric patients. He has been a gifted consultant to medical and psychiatric colleagues on extremely difficult cases… In addition, as Chair of the MPS Committee on Public Relations, he spearheaded the idea of the very awards that we now bestow upon our deserving fellow workers”.

As a counterweight to his professional involvement, he is passionate in his role as husband to his wife Erika, and father to his two children and 1 stepson. He is grandfather to 5 grandchildren. He uses his interest in gourmet cooking and woodworking to divert the tensions developed in his formal work related activities. He is transported above the fray when cooking or molding a piece of wood into a piece of beautiful furniture.

Dr. Rogoff and his wife are residents of the City of Newton, and spend downtime in a more rural section of Vermont.

Your colleagues at the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society are pleased to present the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award to Jerome H. Rogoff, M.D.

 

Published in the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society newsletter, Issue 144, June 2014