Academy Welcomes New Associate Medical Director

During this past summer, Dr. Benjamin Gardner arrived at the Academy and assumed the role of Associate Medical Director. Since his arrival, Gardner has eased Medical Director Dr. Myra Citrin’s workload, previously the only person to hold the position, so she can take time off to support her aging parents.

Gardner developed a wide range of medical expertise through his sixteen years as Choate Rosemary Hall’s Medical Director, a job from which he retired this summer. He specializes in ADHD treatment at the Academy, coordinating with most of the students with the condition. In addition, he is experienced in the field of sports medicine and hopes to spend time with student athletes.

Gardner first became interested in prep school medicine toward the end of his training at Dartmouth Medical School. As a resident physician, he interned at the Academy and spent a month in a rotation with Citrin before moving to Choate. Throughout his sixteen years of service there, he remained in contact with Citrin, discussing challenging cases and how to deal with them. They found they had similar approaches to medicine.

“Dr. Gardner has so far been a terrific addition to our health team.”

This summer, Citrin proposed to Gardner that he share the job of Medical Director with her, as she was considering taking a term off to take care of her parents. This year they will each work on separate days, two days a week.

At the Academy, Gardner has found the setting to be similar to Choate’s, but emphasized that the Academy’s “phenomenal resources” allow for much more flexibility in many instances.

“Everything is very well done here,” he said. “Everything is done carefully. It helps to have good resources because we don’t have to cut corners. That’s certainly the mark here—Exeter does not cut corners.”

On the job, Gardner said that he most enjoys dealing with students and helping them learn to take care of themselves; one factor that is unique to high school, he said, is that they undergo many immense changes both physically and mentally that may fare better with guidance.

Dean of Student Health and Awareness Gordon Coole has known Gardner for sixteen years, beginning when Coole was the Director of Athletic Training at the Academy. The two have worked together on NEPSAC (New England Prep School Athletic Council) to devise care for students on athletic teams and served concurrently on the NEPSAC Sports Medicine Advisory Council to help set standards of care for athletes at all prep schools.

“Dr. Gardner has a positive, out-going personality that makes him very easy to connect with,” Coole said. “He is not one to limit his contact with members of the community to the Health Center but in all manners of boarding school life: dining hall, sports events, pathways. He’s very visible and approachable.”

Director of Nursing Nancy Thompson pointed to Gardner’s many years of experience, and said that he really understands the health and wellness needs of students within the prep school world.

Thompson described him as having a “calm demeanor and a wonderful sense of humor,” which makes him a pleasure to work with. “He really seems to understand and enjoy working with adolescents,” she said, touching upon a different point. “It comes across in all of his interactions with the students that we have seen so far.” 

“Dr. Gardner has so far been a terrific addition to our health team,” Administrative Director of Health Services Margaret O’Day said, echoing the sentiments of Thompson. “[He] brings a new set of eyes to our operation which helps us improve with new energy and ideas.”

Both Thompson and O’Day agreed that Citrin and Gardner share similar values and perspectives on adolescent medicine. This, in combination with his “wonderful and respectful” personality, has made his integration into Health Service “pretty much seamless,” Thompson said.

Born and raised in Darien, Gardner graduated from Phillips Andover in the class of ‘66 and attended Princeton University as an undergraduate. He became a U.S. Naval Officer during the Vietnam War, then switched fields and developed real estate for nearly twenty years. Afterward, he delved into the world of prep school medicine. When Gardner is not at the Academy, he lives near Dartmouth College.

In his free time, Gardner enjoys sailing to places around the world. He just got back from a trip to Lake Superior, and plans to sail to Cuba in April and to Norway next year. To add to the list, he has also visited Finland, England, Crete, Croatia, South America and San Francisco, among many other regions. His passion for the outdoors extends far beyond his love for sailing; he skies in the winter and plays golf in the summer.

Of Gardner’s four children, three of them graduated from Phillips Academy Andover. In spite of his familial and personal ties to Andover, Gardner has found the experience of working at Exeter interesting and the rivalry between the two schools important; he also admits to being “pleasantly surprised” by what he’s seen so far.

“In theory, Exeter is the evil empire to the north,” Gardner said. “In theory, Andover is the evil empire to the south, but I’ve always found the Andover-Exeter rivalry to be a very healthy rivalry, as evidenced by Palfrey being at Andover and MacFarlane being here.”

He ended with a sentence many Andover students would cringe at. “I have found Exeter to be very welcome, very warm, very professional... a beautiful place.”

Contributions from Mark Blekherman