VILLAGE MEMBER STORIES

Susan MacLennon, Dover

I grew up in South Berwick. I went away to school, but always returned for holidays and summers. The house I grew up in is now the head master's house at Berwick Academy. When the academy acquired the house, my parents moved to Durham, so I returned there for vacations.

After I finished medical school and an Internal Medicine Residency, I moved to Portsmouth to practice medicine. My training programs had a strong component of geriatric medicine, which was just emerging as a specialty. I found it appealing because the elderly were seen as worthy of focus and we were all headed there. When I had a geriatric patient who needed a psychiatric consult, all too often I was told it was dementia and treat with a tranquilizer. I felt there had to be more. So I did a psychiatric residency at Tufts and found out there was, indeed, more.

When I finished my psychiatric residency, the Portsmouth Pavilion, a 65-bed psychiatric hospital attached to the new Portsmouth Regional Hospital, had opened. They needed psychiatrists and I was hired as one of the first staff physicians within the HCA organization. This is now the norm rather than the exception, in both inpatient and outpatient practices.

The Pavilion had three units: Adolescent, Adult and Geriatric. When we opened the Geriatric Unit, I was asked what our target population was. I said "people older than me."  There eventually came a time when that was no longer true. In the late 1990's the Pavilion closed and the psychiatric units were consolidated into one "multi-generational" 21-bed unit. In 2001, I moved to the Frisbie Memorial Hospital's Geriatric Psych Unit where I worked for 10 years until retirement.

My husband, Doug, and I used to live in York Beach. In 2005, we bought the General Sullivan House in Durham, which had been in my family for years but needed restoration, yet again. It was a full-time job. We moved there in 2008. After 10 years, we moved to Dover to a smaller house in a community of houses, and hope to remain here.

It was with that goal in mind that we joined the Seacoast Village Project. Not only does the Village offer support when needed, through its network of volunteers, it also offers social connections. The importance of these connections became very clear during the pandemic. Doug and I enjoyed the connections we made through the UNH Marine Docents where we were very active for years until the pandemic suspended programs. We have since become involved as docents at the Woodman Museum in Dover. I also enjoy gardening and have just taken up quilting. I've also gotten involved with the Village's Health Support Team. 

The Seacoast Village Project fits into long term plans on several levels. Besides the social connections, the Village is also a resource for volunteer support for rides, odd jobs around the home, emergency support in a weather crisis, etc. There is also the Health Support Team, which offers information about what is available in the community, referrals to appropriate agencies, help with transition from hospital or rehab home, visits to members who are homebound, help with organizing medications, etc.

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