Dr. Joshua Pretsky has been practicing at the Barrington Psychiatric Center (BPC) in the field of workers’ compensation for 10 years. Appointed as a QME in 1999 and board certified in psychiatry, he has had extensive experience conducting QME evaluations, treatment evaluations and the psychiatric treatment of injured workers.
As a highly respected psychiatrist, Dr. Pretsky has conducted forensic evaluations involving a wide-range of traumas, including severe and disabling physical injuries, workplace sexual harassment and wrongful termination. He has served as a psychiatrist expert in civil litigation cases provoding both deposition and jury trial testimony, and conducted fitness for duty and long-term disability evaluations. He has lectured at law firms in the greater LA area on the MCLE topics of stress and substance abuse. Dr. Pretsky’s approach emphasizes accuracy, factual detail and the application of evidence-based medicine.
In addition to his work with BPC, Dr. Pretsky maintains a private practice of psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. With postgraduate training in psychosomatic medicine, Dr. Pretsky has managed the psychiatric issues of hospitalized surgical and medical patients. He has successfully treated patients whose depression, pain or cognitive impairment detrimentally impacts their motivation and energy to engage in rehabilitative programs and patients whose psychological conflicts and defenses are exacerbated by their loss of autonomy while hospitalized. Dr. Pretsky has worked with post-operative patients suffering delirium and alterations in cognitive function and patients who have behavioral agitation, delusions and hallucinations while in intensive care.
As an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine he lectures and supervises resident psychiatrists on the diagnosis and treatment of DSM-IV axis I and axis II disorders. There he also serves on the board of directors of the psychiatry clinical faculty association. Dr. Pretsky is a faculty instructor at the New Center for Psychoanalysis, where he was a founding board member. There he trains psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists in advanced psychotherapy theory and technique.
Dr. Pretsky completed medical school at UCLA and his residency in Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he received the Pfizer Resident of the Year award and the Horowitz Award for clinical excellence. Dr. Pretsky is a certified member of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and an attending psychiatrist at St. John’s Hospital Medical Center in Santa Monica, CA.