Katherine Grieco, DO
Fellowship Program Director
Dr. Grieco is Rushford’s Fellowship Program Director. She currently treats patients with substance use disorders at an intensive outpatient program at The Institute of Living and provides addiction medicine consultations to HIV patients in an outpatient Infectious Disease Clinic. She is dually board-certified in family medicine from the American Osteopathic Board of Family Physicians and in addiction medicine from the American Board of Preventive Medicine. She is also a fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
Dr Katherine Grieco completed her residency in family medicine at St. Joseph Medical Center (now part of Penn State Health) in Reading, PA. After residency, she completed an HIV primary care fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, followed by an addiction medicine fellowship at Yale School of Medicine. She is the former medical director of a methadone maintenance treatment center in New Haven.
Vincent McClain, MD
Associate Program Director
Dr. Vincent McClain is the Associate Program Director for Rushford’s Addiction Medicine Fellowship and Rushford’s Associate Medical Director for Residential Addiction Services. He is certified by the American Board of Addiction Medicine and also maintains American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology certification. He graduated from St. George’s University School of Medicine and completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford, CT and his Addiction Medicine Fellowship at Rushford in Middletown, CT.
In addition, he serves as Medical Review Officer and Associate Program Director for HAVEN, a confidential assistance and monitoring program for Connecticut’s healthcare professionals facing the challenges of chemical dependency, mental illness, physical illness or emotional issues.
J. Craig Allen, MD, FASAM
Chief Medical Officer, Rushford
Dr. Allen is the Medical Director of Rushford Center, Chief of Psychiatry at Midstate Medical Center, and Vice President of Addiction Services for Hartford Healthcare. As Co-Chair of Hartford Healthcare’s Opioid Stewardship Council, Dr. Allen, with help from the addiction medicine faculty and fellows, has held the annual system-wide opioid symposium.
Dr. Allen is on the state of Connecticut’s Advisory Board for the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Alcohol and Drug Policy Council, co-chairing the treatment subcommittee. He is on the executive council and is the past President of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. In addition, Dr. Allen is a founding member of the Medical Directors Institute for the National Council of Mental Wellbeing.
Board certified in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Adult Psychiatry, and Addiction Medicine, Dr. Allen has held faculty appointments at Harvard and Yale Medical schools and is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Quinnipiac University, Frank Netter School of Medicine.
Dr. Allen lectures and advocates locally, nationally, and internationally for prevention, screening, early intervention, and treatment access for people with Substance use and other Psychiatric disorders throughout the lifespan. He sees patients at Rushford and through his private practice in Branford, CT.
Associate Medical Director, Rushford Center Meriden
Associate Medical Director, Rushford Center Meriden
Dr. Zhao has been with Hartford Healthcare for five years. He was born in Tai Yuan, China. He moved to the United States at age 11 and has lived in Connecticut most of his life. He graduated from the University of Connecticut with a BS in Psychology before earning his medical degree and master's of public health degree at the same institution. He completed his adult psychiatry residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he also served as the Vice Chair of Operations for the Resident Patient Safety and Quality Council.
In public health, he has partnered with the Hartford Department of Health and Human Services on various projects such as infant mortality reduction, teen pregnancy prevention, and the Community Health Improvement Project. He is interested in health policy, system operation, program creation, and access to care.
Dr. Zhao is also an enthusiastic educator. He is the psychopharmacology course director for adult psychiatry residents at the IOL and has lectured on various psychiatric topics throughout his career.
Samuel Silverman, MD
Rushford Faculty and Past Program Director
Dr. Silverman is the former program director of the Rushford Addiction Medicine fellowship. Now semi-retired, he continues to run recovery groups, treat patients via telemedicine, and teach Rushford fellows. He earned his medical degree from the University of Ghent in Ghent, Belgium. He completed his residency in psychiatry at the Institute of Living.
Throughout his career, he has made significant contributions to the field, including starting one of the largest multidisciplinary group practices in Connecticut, consulting on the rollout of Suboxone, and serving as chief medical officer for TryCycle, a recovery-focused mobile app. He is the former president of the Connecticut chapter of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
Shannon Maher, MD
Assistant Medical Director, Rushford Center Middletown
Dr. Maher is the current Assistant Medical Director of Rushford in Middletown. She is a proud graduate of Rushford's Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program. She is board certified in Emergency Medicine; she completed her residency at Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, NY, and earned her medical degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY.
In addition to her dedication to addiction medicine, Dr. Maher is also passionate about health and wellness. She completed the Integrative Medicine Fellowship through the University of Arizona, has training in acupuncture through SUNY Downstate, and is certified in acudetox for treatment of substance use disorders. Dr. Maher enjoys incorporating these interests into her practice at Rushford.
Dr. Maher lives with her family in one of CT's quintessential New England shoreline towns and has 2 active preteen boys who love the beach almost as much as she does!
Emily Laurenzano, DO
Addiction Psychiatrist, Rushford Center Middletown
Dr. Laurenzano is an addiction psychiatrist from Western Massachusetts. She obtained her medical degree from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed her psychiatry residency at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. She later completed the fellowship in Addiction Medicine at Rushford and enjoyed the experience so much that she decided to stay and work at Rushford. She loves passing on what she has learned about addiction, recovery, and psychiatry to the addiction medicine fellows at Rushford as well as the Physician Assistant students coming to Rushford for their psychiatry rotation. She enjoys spending time with her family, reading, painting, and playing piano.
Anne Dowton, MD
Director of Addiction Medicine at Hartford Hospital
Dr. Dowton is the Director of Addiction Medicine at Hartford Hospital. She directs the inpatient Addiction Medicine Consult Service at Hartford Hospital and provides care to patients with substance use disorders who are admitted to the acute care setting. She holds dual board-certification in Internal Medicine from the American Board of Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine from the American Board of Preventative Medicine.
Dr. Dowton received her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine and then completed her Internal Medicine residency at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA. After residency, she completed the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at Yale School of Medicine.
She is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.
Amanda Moore, PA-C
AP Program Manager, Addiction Medicine at Hartford Hospital
Amanda Moore is the APP Program Manager for the Addiction Medicine Consult Service at Hartford Hospital. She received her master’s degree in physician assistant studies from Springfield College in 2017 and began her career at Hartford Hospital as a hospitalist, where she worked for 5 years. She gained addiction medicine experience during her psychiatry rotation in PA school at Rushford and went on to work at Rushford in Middletown per-diem for 5 years. She also worked briefly at Yale on their Inpatient Addiction Medicine Consult Service before returning to Hartford Hospital in 2022. Upon her return to Hartford Hospital, she started the second Inpatient Addiction Medicine Consult Service in the state of CT. Amanda is passionate about improving addiction medicine care for individuals in the hospital setting.
S Jason Wang, MD
Addiction Medicine Physician, Hartford Hospital Bridge Clinic
Dr. Wang runs the Hartford Hospital Addiction Medicine Bridge Clinic. This clinic provides crucial stabilization care for patients who have recently been discharged from the hospital. In addition, he works on the Addiction Medicine Consult Service at Hartford Hospital and maintains his own private practice in West Hartford. He is the current President of the Connecticut Society of Addiction Medicine and is an Assistant Clinical Professor with the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.
Dr. Wang received his medical degree from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. After residency, he practiced hospital medicine primarily in rural and post-industrial urban areas of New Hampshire and Ohio, where he became interested in SUD treatment. After returning to Connecticut, he completed the Rushford Addiction Medicine Fellowship in 2024. He is interested in studying and improving system-wide disparities in SUD care. He lives in West Hartford with his wife, two children, and their fluffy cat, Potato.
Brittany Leibla, DNP, APRN, AGACNP-BC
Addiction Medicine Specialist, Community Health Resources
Dr. Brittania Liebla, DNP, APRN, AGACNP-BC is an independent, doctorate-prepared nurse practitioner specializing in Critical Care and Addiction Medicine. As the Addiction Medicine Specialist and Senior APRN for Community Health Resources in Connecticut, she leads a multidisciplinary team providing care across outpatient, correctional, and consultation settings, overseeing the outpatient methadone program, addiction medicine consultation service, and correctional MOUD programs. She also led the integration and expansion of opioid treatment programs across six Connecticut correctional facilities and is recognized for her expertise in harm reduction and addiction care.
Dr. Liebla has been a leader in advancing addiction medicine at the regional and national levels. She coordinated New England's first documented EMS-initiated buprenorphine pilot for patients revived after opioid overdose, which informed Connecticut's statewide EMS protocol. She received the 2024 American Association of Nurse Practitioners State Award for Excellence and serves as a co-author and expert panel member for the forthcoming ASAM Criteria, 4th Edition: Correctional Settings and Reentry volume. She is additionally a Doctoral Student Advisor at the University of Connecticut School of Nursing.
Robin Deutsch, MD
Associate Medical Director, Community Health Resources
Dr. Deutsch is a native of Hartford, CT and a passionate advocate for improving the delivery of care to underserved populations and integrating evidence-based treatment of substance use disorders into primary care and hospital care. She earned her medical degree from the University of Connecticut, completed her residency training in Internal Medicine at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, and fellowship training in Infectious Disease at the University of Connecticut. She is board-certified in Infectious Disease, Addiction Medicine, and Internal Medicine
She worked for 6 years at Hartford Hospital as Assistant Director of Infectious Disease where she founded an addiction treatment program within an HIV primary care clinic as part of an integrated care model, led efforts to improve treatment of opioid use disorder for hospitalized patients, and received teaching awards from the residency and fellowship programs. In 2021, she transitioned to Associate Medical Director at Community Health Resources, a community behavioral health clinic where she practices primary care and addiction medicine, and is Medical Director for an opioid treatment program within several of Connecticut’s correctional facilities.
She has been on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance since 2020 and is a champion of incorporating a harm reduction philosophy into medical care.
Amy Johnson, MD
Medical Director of Women’s Ambulatory Health Services
Dr. Amy Johnson is the Medical Director of Women’s Ambulatory Health Services (WAHS) at Hartford Hospital and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She earned her medical degree from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and completed her residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Since joining Hartford Hospital in 2006, Dr. Johnson has been committed to providing compassionate, evidence-based care while educating future healthcare professionals. A longtime educator and mentor, she previously served as Residency Program Director for the University of Connecticut Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Program and has dedicated much of her career to physician training, curriculum development, and academic leadership.
Dr. Johnson has particular expertise in menopause care, hormone therapy, headache disorders in women, and the care of vulnerable populations. A nationally recognized educator and scholar, her work has focused on improving the health of women across the lifespan, including those affected by trauma, substance use disorders, and healthcare disparities. She has contributed to research, publications, and educational initiatives addressing these issues, including co-authoring a book chapter on substance use disorders during pregnancy.
As Medical Director of WAHS, Dr. Johnson leads a multidisciplinary team dedicated to delivering high-quality, patient-centered care to a diverse and underserved community. She is passionate about expanding access to women’s healthcare services, advancing health equity, addressing disparities in care, and developing innovative models of care that support women through every stage of life.