GREAT BARRINGTON -
Dr. Deborah Buccino has been selected as the Berkshire County District Medical
Society’s 2018 Community Clinician of the Year, an award recognizing his professionalism
and contributions as a physician.
Buccino, who
practices general pediatrics at MACONY Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, is a
graduate of Yale University and Harvard Medical School and completed a
residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital in 1996.
A board-certified pediatrician and fellow
of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Buccino serves as school physician at
Berkshire School and, previously, held the same role at Bard College at Simon's
Rock. She is an Instructor of Pediatrics
with Boston University School of Medicine. Buccino also engages young medical
learners at MACONY Pediatrics, which facilitates students through the year
doing pediatric clerkship to gain experience in a rural setting.
Buccino’s special interests include
emotional development of children and families, adolescent medicine and
gynecology, international medicine, post-concussion care, and healthcare
technology. Buccino completed the REACH
mini-fellowship in Patient-Centered Mental Health for Pediatric Primary Care
and is a credentialed IMPACT© concussion specialist.
In 2015, Buccino
became aware of growing problems in Berkshire County associated with increasing
poverty, substance misuse, and household dysfunction - so-called Adverse
Childhood Experiences (ACEs) associated with later medical and psychological
disability.
Existing resources
could not keep up with the 700 percent increase in emotional disabilities seen
at the local elementary school. In response, and often volunteering her time, Buccino
partnered with Muddy Brook Elementary principal Mary Berle and Berkshire
Faculty Services South County care coordinator Adrian Conklin, RN to create a
“collaborative care team.”
Such collaborative
care teams are nationally recognized as a state-of-the-art approach to
addressing population-wide problems associated with medical and psychological
dysfunction.
Not only is the
South County Collaborative Care Team Buccino spearheaded the first in Berkshire
County, but it is also a model of the collaborative care team approach and
links South County pediatricians directly with school systems and community
resources through personal relationships among the participants and with the
leadership of the team.
Over the past two
years, the South County Collaborative Care Team has improved coordination, efficiency,
and accountability, while connecting more than 200 families with needed
services.
The Community
Clinician of the Year Award was established in 1998 by the Massachusetts
Medical Society to recognize a physician from each of the organization’s 20 district
societies who has made significant contributions to his or her patients and the
community.
The Massachusetts Medical
Society (MMS) is the statewide professional association for physicians and
medical students, supporting 25,000 members. We are dedicated to educating and
advocating for the physicians of Massachusetts and patients locally and
nationally. A leadership voice in health care, the MMS contributes physician
and patient perspectives to influence health-related legislation at the state and
federal levels, works in support of public health, provides expert advice on
physician practice management, and addresses issues of physician well-being.
Under the auspices of the NEJM Group, the MMS extends our mission globally by
advancing medical knowledge from research to patient care through the New England Journal of Medicine, NEJM
Catalyst, and the NEJM Journal Watch family of specialty publications, and
through our education products for health care professionals: NEJM Knowledge+,
NEJM Resident 360, and our accredited and comprehensive continuing medical
education programs.
