Medical Director's 2007 Summary

The Kolmac program has now treated over 11,000 patients over its 34 years of existence. In 2007, we treated 956 patients. At the end of the year, 450 patients were in active treatment. Some of the major events of the year were:

• Our new Columbia office flourished, growing at a faster rate than any previous office. By the end of the year, 4 continuing care groups were established. Our intensive outpatient rehabilitation program is the only one in Howard County that accepts insurance and the response of the community indicates that this service was needed.

• We saw significant growth in our program of opening up our continuing care groups to patients who had recently completed residential rehabilitation. This seemed to be having the desired effect of facilitating the continued recovery of those who begun their treatment away from the Washington metropolitan area. We currently have 42 of these patients in our program and the average length of stay is 8 months.

• Two new specialized continued care groups were established. In our DC office, a gay men’s group was begun by Dr. John Carr. In Silver Spring, a group for patients with attention deficit disorders was started in the evening program.

• The Kolmac Foundation began to make grants to patients in continuing care to allow them to complete treatment.  During 2007, the Foundation raised over $50,000 and provided financial support to 15 patients.

• Moe Briggs took over as the director of the DC office. Moe has a Masters degree in Clinical Community Counseling with an addictions specialty from Johns Hopkins University and has many years experience working in the addictions field in the Washington area.

• An alumni organization was started by A.J. Mitchell for patients from the Silver Spring office. As one of its initial projects, members have been volunteering to speak about their recovery experience with Georgetown University medical students who rotate through the Kolmac Clinic.

• Kolmac Clinic patients used space in our DC office to establish the first lunchtime meeting of Smart Recovery.

• Dr. George Kolodner assumed the chairmanship of the committee overseeing the further development of the Patient Placement Criteria of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

We are looking forward in 2008 to reactivating the Kolmac School and providing presentations in the community on topics related to substance use disorders. Other plans include the possibility of opening a morning program in our Columbia office and establishing an alumni group for our Gaithersburg or DC office.

I remain grateful to the support that we continue to receive from the recovery and professional communities.

Sincerely,

George Kolodner, M.D.

Medical Director

Back to Home page