Dr. Deborah Lee Giorgi-Guarnieri, MD

Dr. GG is a superb physician. As a retired internist I can say that Dr. GG is not only a very competent psychiatrist but that she has a wide range of medical knowledge extending beyond psychiatry. I have been seeing Dr. GG for 15 years and she has helped me immensely. I was struggling with major depression when I first saw her and she change my antidepressant toa medicine that has kept my depression at bay for all these years without discernible side effects. She has helped me with other issues as well. She has a very patient, calm, gentle and understanding bedside manner. I cannot recommend her highly enough.

Dr. GG. knows what she's talking about, which I think is the #1 thing to look for in a prescribing physician.

Worst Doctor in the world.

Dr. Giorgi-Guarnieri is one of the most thoughtful and compassionate psychiatrists in the area. She listens intently, and often finds unconventional solutions to psychiatric problems that can elude other doctors. I like that she is meticulous and honest. I would recommend her without hesitation.

Find somewhere else.

Her theories and methods were unorthodox and didn't help me at all.

Seemed like she was unhappy to see me, like having a patient was an inconvenience. Was looking at her phone for over half the appointment. Seemed like her mind was elsewhere.

Terrible

I noticed the same thing as other reviewers. She does take personal calls and text messages during appointments and even spent a good deal of time one session talking about her daughters' issues at college. Yet, she does not return patient calls or calls from therapists with whom she is supposedly working in tandem. Also, as someone else pointed out, she does seem to be swayed by drug reps and pushes a lot of unconventional treatment of dubious quality. She bragged about a paid trip to Israel from one of the drug companies. Having said that, she is fairly quick compared to other doctors, if sometimes evasive and coy, which is a strange quality for a doctor. Her office staff is gruff except for one very nice woman. I would say to try someone else except the other options aren't great. Also, if you're someone who needs to contact a doctor between appointments, she is not the right doctor. She cancels appointments frequently, as well, but they can usually be rescheduled fairly… quickly. She's definitely not the typical psychiatrist. I would say try her and see if you can work with her deficiencies, as she is quite bright, which is not easy to find around here.

Dr. GG is a good psychiatrist for this area, meaning she's intelligent and generally knows what's going on in the psych world. Yes, she does tend to go on about her children and takes non-urgent phone calls in session (which is annoying as she doesn't take urgent calls from patients), but she also spends more time with me than other psychiatrists have. She isn't too interested in your lifeâ??she really focuses on medication, but I think it's important for a doctor to know what your issues are when prescribing. Still, I give her a good review because if you've seen other psychiatrists in this area (and there really aren't that many), you know it's a pretty sorry lot. She's the best I've seen. I honestly think most of the secretaries working for psychiatrists in this area could do a better job prescribing meds. As for her not taking patients on benzos, I had not heard of that. I do know that she has had an awakening in the years I've seen her regarding benzos. I came to her on a… benzo telling her I wanted to get off of it, and when I met her she really dismissed the idea of taking benzos long term being a problem. I think she got a lot of patients all at once who were iatrogenically addicted to benzos and has learned a lot in a short time about their problems. I've noticed that other psychs in this area use long-term benzodiazepine therapy as first-line treatmentâ??which is a problem, because it tends to make people worse. I know it did for me. As for not taking a patient because they are on a benzo, that is inexcusable, though. People on benzos need help more than others because of the situation they have been put in by the reckless doctors in this area.