Public Employee Press

Heartfelt gratitude for a Jacobi Psychologist

By MIKE LEE

Clinical Psychologist Dr. Steven Goldfinger has worked tirelessly for decades treating patients at the NYC Health and Hospitals at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.

Dr. Goldfinger treats patients with chemical dependence at Jacobi's Comprehensive Addiction Treatment Center. The member of Psychologists Local 1189 is also an assistant professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also the local's treasurer, a committed trade unionist.

A career caring for patients who are among the most vulnerable and, at times, stigmatized, is a challenging task, said Dr. Goldfinger, who has worked with empathy to help thousands of patients, some with multiple addictions and mental health issues. Last year, he received an accolade that perhaps means the most to a doctor. A former patient in the center wrote a heartfelt, brutally honest letter of gratitude to Dr. Goldfinger for setting him on the difficult road to sobriety. The letter, published in the NYC Health + Hospitals Insider, told the story of Dr. Goldfinger's role in the patient's long journey from the nightfall of addiction.

The patient wrote, "You were the first person who asked me to question whether I really had any control over my addiction." He added that Dr. Goldfinger described the "countless people, just like me, who you had seen coming and going for years, and never getting well."

The patient said the description scared him a lot. So, after rehab, he worked hard to remain sober, and a decade later wrote the letter to the doctor to thank him.