Meet Our Medical Director
Dr. Seitz graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and
completed his medical degree at the S.U.N.Y Stony Brook School of Medicine. He is a dually Board Certified physician (in both Addiction Medicine and Family Medicine) with more than 15 years of clinical experience in both private office-based and hospital-based practice. Dr. Seitz served as the Medical Director of The Recovery Center at Nyack Hospital (an affiliate of NY Presbyterian Hospital) from 2010-2016, a facility with both inpatient and outpatient addiction services. In addition, he has been an assistant professor at the Einstein School of Medicine through his affiliation with Beth Israel Hospital and its residency program.
How did Dr. Seitz begin a career in Addiction Medicine?
In the mid-1990’s Dr. Seitz was both in private practice and a teacher in the Family Medicine Residency Program at Beth Israel Hospital. Drug and alcohol addiction were rampant and many lives were being lost or destroyed. Although society viewed such patients with disdain, it was evident that these were talented and intelligent people – artists and musicians, doctors and teachers – whose lives had been derailed by drug use.
At the same time, Dr. Seitz, who is also an accomplished musician, became a partner in Theater 99, a large recording studio in Manhattan. The studio became successful, recording such artists as The Black Crowes and Iggy Pop.
It was in the studio that the worlds of music and addiction collided head on – with devastating results. Allen Woody, one of the founders of Gov’t Mule died of a heroin overdose on the first day of recording the new Gov’t Mule album in August 2000. From that moment on, Dr. Seitz made the commitment to help treat and prevent the disease of addiction as well as to change how it is depicted in media and understood by the public.
Two years later Dr. Seitz became Board Certified in Addiction Medicine (by the American Board of Addiction Medicine) and was one of the early adopters of Suboxone detoxification and maintenance treatment once it was FDA approved in 2002. He became Medical Director at National Recovery Institute in Manhattan and later, of the Recovery Center at Nyack Hospital.
Three years ago, aware that hospital-based detoxification is not right for everyone, Dr. Seitz became interested in the concept of ambulatory detoxification, where detoxification is managed outside of a standard inpatient hospital setting. After successfully creating and implementing such a program it became clear that this concept could be extended further, to the individualized care that he now practices as the Medical Director of Detox at Home.