Health

HE A LTH • Spring 2019 19 PHYSICIANS Andrea Chiaramonte, MD, MPH Melinda Thacker, MD Johnathon Sillman, MD, FACS James Hughes, MD Cynthia Duhamel, PA-C Robert Moran, PA-C AUDIOLOGISTS Marla Allard, M.A., CCC-A Jane Ehnstrom, M.S., CCC-A Michelle Fleck, M.A., CCC-A Merrisa Murtha, AU.D., CCC-A • Adult and Pediatric patients welcome • Audiology and balance testing and medical treatment • Thyroid and parathyroid surgical evaluation and intervention • Sinus and nasal disease evaluated and treated • In Office surgery available if appropriate • All manner of Head and Neck masses and lesions evaluated and treated • Voice evaluation and treatment Professional Otolaryngology Specialty Care in a Kind and Compassionate Manner 100 Martin Luther King Junior Blvd. Worcester, MA 01608 Phone: 508-757-0330 • Fax: 508-752-9850 aohns.com Like us on A Multi- Disciplinary Approach to the Treatment of Migraines Dr. Herbert Markley 508-890-5633 www.nerhc.org New England Regional Headache Center 85 Prescott St. Suite 101 Worcester, MA 01605 ing out to an emergency to relax themselves, or to decompress a bit afterward. "They can just take a few deep breaths to collect themselves and they feel more prepared for the call that way," he said. Papagni has seen strides both local- ly and statewide. Papagni serves as the president of the local firefighters' union, Worcester Firefighters Local 1009, and is a member of the executive board of the group Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts. Better recognition of warning signs of stress or emotional harm has been critical to helping firefighters get the help they need, Papagni said. "That has enabled not only our fire- fighters to see the signs of stress in themselves but also those they work with, and those at home as well," he said. "We tend to bring home a lot of stress in our jobs." Much of that response occurs in- house. Firefighters aren't trained mental health professionals, but they under- stand the toll the job can take better than anyone who hasn't rushed into a burning building. "That's where our efforts have changed," Papagni said. "We're not necessarily therapists but peers. We train firefighters to help each other." The Worcester Police Department was one of the first to recognize a problem. When the department start- ed its stress program in 1978, it was third in the state to do so, behind only the Boston and the Massachusetts State Police, said Mahan, the depart- ment's stress program coordinator. Mahan took over his current role in 1981, working all the while with the psychologist Dr. Leo Polizoti to help the department's roughly 460 police officers. Mahan attributes the program's longevity to the constant support it's received from the department's leadership. The department plans to soon begin psychiatric evaluations on officers who do undercover work to ensure their particularly challenging assign- ments aren't proving harmful. Like the Worcester Fire Department, the police's mental health program treats those from sur- rounding, smaller departments with- out the capacity to have such pro- grams themselves. "We don't refuse anybody," Mahan said, calling mental health needs an ongoing concern, not necessarily in response to any single incidents a responder would come across. "You don't work for 30 years doing what we do and think it's not going to affect them." H

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