Jacksonville psychiatrist Dr. Marek Hirsch has created a space designed to encourage men to talk about their feelings with confidence and trust in a setting structured to have male appeal.
The offices of Men’s Mental Health, at 1035 Kings Ave. in San Marco, include elements such as a large photograph depicting a car trying to outrun an airplane and a “weighting room” with kettle weights, steel plates and a lifting bench.
“Doctors are always telling their patients, ‘Exercise. Get outside, at least go for a walk,’” Hirsch said.
“I took it one step further. I put in a free gym so there are no excuses. I literally want you to use it before you leave my building. That is so important that I invested in the equipment and the space in the building to do it.”
Hirsch said men tend to struggle more than women with issues such as anger management and gambling and drug addictions.
“Gambling is considered to be the most powerful addiction of all, because it’s of the concept of intermittent reward. You never know when you’re going to win, which makes it all the more addicting. You keep going and going and going,” Hirsch said.
“At least with substance abuse, if you’re addicted to alcohol and you drink a certain amount, you know what’s going to happen. At some point, you’ll pass out.”
Social isolation and addiction to pornography also are issues, Hirsch said, and have been exacerbated by extended time at home during the COVID crisis and the realism of AI imagery.
“Pornography is really prevalent,” Hirsch said. “There are these romantic bots. I’ve had patients who have almost ruined their lives because they got sucked into an artificial romantic relationship with an AI bot.”
New patients at Men’s Mental Health meet for an hour with one of four psychiatric nurse practitioners. Hirsch likes to establish a relationship so subsequent sessions may become easier and more relaxed.
Hirsch recognizes that it seems a bit ironic to have four female nurse practitioners staffing the office, but he said it comes down to odds.
“I frequently get that question, and there’s the practical answer: It’s probably between 75% and 80% of the psychiatric nurse practitioners who are graduating are female. So there’s just more female nurse practitioners available to hire,” he said.
Men’s Mental Health offers telehealth services, but practitioners see most patients in person.
Hirsch spends about half his time at the office, which he opened in September. His other job is chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Baptist Health. His work involves treating patients in emergency situations who are enduring severe mental distress.
Men’s Mental Health is one of the first private practices to join the Epic Community Connect program at Baptist Health, through which patients can review past visits, check on medications, confirm appointments or reach out to Hirsch and his staff through My Baptist Chart, an online portal connected to the Epic software.
The software is designed to eliminate redundancy. If a patient is part of the Baptist Health system, Hirsch’s office can know about their prescriptions and medical history without having to spend initial appointment time gathering medical background information.
The system can also can provide information about patients treated for physical injuries, which can provide a clue to a possible post traumatic stress syndrome diagnosis, said Aaron Miri, Baptist executive vice president, chief digital and information officer.
Epic Community Connect is a subscription service for smaller practices to enable health care providers to contribute to a patient’s health database and learn about the latest treatments.
“Let’s assume you’re independent practice, and you want to gain some of that knowledge. You want to be able to share in that. It’s a great way to take care of a patient,” Miri said.
“You want to leverage what Baptist has developed. If you can, you’re one leg up, right? You’re able to really see patients in a lot more effective ways.”
Hirsch, 41, is from Boston. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Miami and his residency at Harvard Medical School. While an undergrad, he visited a friend who had moved to Jacksonville. Hirsch remembered the quiet north Florida beach town upon earning his degree, and he set out to start his career in Jacksonville.
His wife, Elena, is a professional concert pianist and composer for film. She is from Germany. They have four young children.
For the clinic offices, the couple bought the two-story, 4,140-square-foot former ELM architecture office in February for $1.3 million. Built in the 1940s, it has the space for enclosed cubical offices, as well as an outdoor balcony overlooking Kings Avenue.
ELM moved to Riverplace Tower at 1301 Riverplace Blvd.