Dr. Alok Saharan is the Medical Director at Maryland Addiction Recovery Center. A psychiatrist, Dr. Saharan joined MARC with an extensive history working in the field of behavioral healthcare. A 1991 graduate of King George’s Medical College in Lucknow, India, he then went on to complete his psychiatry residency at the same institution of higher learning, after which he moved to the United Kingdom where he was trained in the Oxford rotation in the UK. Next, Dr. Saharan moved to the United States and completed psychiatry residency at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Saharan is board certified from the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and throughout his career gained extensive experience working in the areas of child and adolescent psychiatry, adult psychiatry, addiction psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, and ECT. He has held positions of lead psychiatry, medical director, and chairman for departments of psychiatry, working in different healthcare settings that include inpatient psychiatric hospitals, drug and alcohol detox, residential treatment centers, community outpatient clinics, Medication-Assistant Treatment (MAT) programs, and extended acute care settings for mental health. In addition to his work experience, Dr. Saharan has also been an assistant professional at two institutions and has won awards as an educator. He has also spent time as a medical researcher and has had numerous published research papers in medical journals.
With over 25 years in the behavioral healthcare field, Dr. Saharan believes substance use disorder as a disease should be understood through the unique perspective of each patient- through their life experiences, their psychological framework, their current stressors, and the co-occurring psychiatric diagnosis. As the Medical Director at MARC, Dr. Saharan works alongside the other members of the medical team and the entire clinical team, to ensure that each patient is understood through their unique set of circumstances, to help craft an individualized treatment plan, and offer guidance, support, and expertise to aid each patient in creating a positive, sustainable recovery outcome.
