About John Diggins, MDÂ
Child, Adolescent & Adult Psychiatrist
John Diggins, MD is a psychiatrist with more than two decades of experience in medicine and psychiatry working with children, adolescents, young adults, and families. His approach to psychiatry emphasizes careful evaluation, collaboration, and understanding each patient as a person—not simply as a collection of symptoms or diagnoses.Â
Psychiatric care begins with understanding what is wrong, but it should not end there. Dr. Diggins believes treatment should also help patients and families recognize strengths, develop capacities, and move toward the kind of life they hope to build.Â
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Particularly when working with children and adolescents, symptoms cannot be understood in isolation. Development, family relationships, school, friendships, physical health, temperament, and life experiences are all important to understanding a young person, although the ways in which they contribute to current challenges will vary. Dr. Diggins therefore approaches evaluation as an effort to understand the whole person and the circumstances in which concerns have developed.
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Treatment is collaborative.
Parents bring an essential understanding of their children, while children and adolescents need to feel heard and increasingly involved in decisions about their own care. With young adults, that collaboration evolves toward greater independence and responsibility for treatment.Â
An Approach
Focused on the Whole PersonÂ
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Dr. Diggins graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and completed the Triple Board Residency Program at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati.Â
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Triple Board is an integrated five-year residency combining training in pediatrics, general psychiatry, and child and adolescent psychiatry. This training provided a foundation for understanding psychiatric illness within the broader context of child development, physical health, family, and the transition from childhood through adulthood.Â
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At the completion of residency, Dr. Diggins received the program's Excellence in Adolescent Medicine Award.Â
Specialized TrainingÂ
Over the course of his career, Dr. Diggins has practiced psychiatry in a wide range of settings, including community outpatient clinics, hospital-based programs, inpatient psychiatry, high-acuity adolescent care, and the juvenile justice system.Â
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His experience has included academic appointments and clinical work at UMass, psychiatric care for veterans within the VA system, and many years caring for children, adolescents, and families in community and hospital-based practices throughout Massachusetts.Â
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Dr. Diggins has also worked with physicians and other professionals in recovery and remains involved in efforts supporting physician health and well-being.Â
Broad Clinical ExperienceÂ
Dr. Diggins' education and experience extend beyond medicine. He studied biology and chemistry at Providence College and later completed a Master of Divinity degree and served for several years in ministry.Â
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These experiences contributed to an enduring interest in questions that sometimes accompany psychiatric illness but extend beyond diagnosis: how people understand themselves, what gives their lives meaning, how relationships and communities shape well-being, and what it means not simply to recover from illness but to live well.Â
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Patients come from many different backgrounds and hold many different beliefs. For some patients, spirituality or religious faith is an important part of how they understand themselves, their relationships, their struggles, and their hopes. For other patients, religion or spirituality has not been a part of their life experience. Dr. Diggins is comfortable exploring these subjects when patients wish to bring them into treatment, but they are never presumed or imposed.
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A Broader PerspectiveÂ
Considering Psychiatric Care for Yourself or Your Child?Â
