Helping Patients Through Their Hardest Days
A Psychiatrist Offers His Patients A Real Shot at Mental Health
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Dr. Kevin Lemaire applied to med school with a hugely impressive list of outside activities in high school and as a college undergraduate. As president of the Haitian American Club, he spent his time at Brooklyn College creating cultural events and fundraisers following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti that killed 300,000 people.
Lemaire was accepted into a one-year master’s program at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, which, upon successful completion, would allow him entry to the school’s Doctor of Osteopathic medical program. “Touro gave me an unbelievable opportunity to prove myself and to get into medical school through a different route.”
He graduated in 2017 and is now the medical director of the Inpatient Psychiatric Unit at Jersey City Medical Center, a member of Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health, the state’s largest integrated healthcare delivery system.
“I see patients, I supervise medical school students and residents,” says Lemaire, 36. “And I have a unique opportunity to shape and mold the next generation of doctors in general and specifically doctors of color. I love every aspect of the roles for which I’ve been entrusted.”
It’s impossible for Lemaire to do just one thing. While in medical school and residency, for instance, he was an active member of Psychiatry Student Interest Group, Student Ambassador Program, Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine Teacher’s Assistant Program and a MedAchieve mentor scholar. He entered a psychiatry residency program at Garnet Health in Middletown, New York, where he researched alternative therapies for PTSD and was the chief resident of his class.
“Touro professors gave me everything I needed to become a successful, compassionate and knowledgeable psychiatrist,” he says.
Through psychiatry residencies and rounds, Lemaire also discovered his passion to treat patients with mental disorders and diseases. “My work is intense,” he says. “You’re not dealing with glitz and glamour. You’re dealing with marginalized young and old people who suffer from schizophrenia, depression, PTSD and catatonia, and many of them want to die—in fact, have attempted suicide more than once. They need help and that’s what I pledge to provide.”
To keep himself mentally fit, Lemaire spends time with his wife and little girl and believes strongly in the power of laughter to heal. “I love to laugh,” he says. “And I laugh hardest at my own jokes.”
