NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD
Irving M. Allen MD eleifend
Emeritus psychiatrist to the Harvard University Health Service
Irving allen is a retired psychiatrist who practiced this specialty for 50 years in the Greater Boston area. He is an emeritus psychiatrist to the Harvard University Health Service. He was employed by the Veterans Administration for 15 years and specialized In Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
The Massachusetts Psychiatric Society named Dr. Allen the outstanding clinical psychiatrist of the year in 2006.
Dr. Allen’s interest in racial disparities has spanned his entire career, both at a clinical patient by patient level as well as at the institutional level, where he found community institutions experiencing systemic deprivations of adequate resources. He has given many presentations related to racism issues, and was a developer with 4 colleagues of a medical disparities course for Harvard medical students. A guiding principle of Dr. Allen’s has been to expose, confront, and modify racial issues in his own clinical settings. Additionally, he worked in several Roxbury/Dorchester community agencies ( Roxbury Court Clinic, Roxbury Children’s Service, Putnam Children’s Center, New England Home For Little Wanderers).
Achievements
The Massachusetts Psychiatric Society named Dr. Allen the outstanding clinical psychiatrist of the year in 2006. His work and writing in support of Boston black school children undergoing the stress of desegregation resistance was cited by the award, as well as the extensive work with black Vietnam veterans.