OGDENSBURG -- Psychiatrist Dr. Javier Vargas Claxton has joined the staff at Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center’s Mental Health Center.

Vargas is providing inpatient psychiatric care.

Vargas has been at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh, where he served as mental services medical director. Prior to that, he was a staff psychiatrist and chairman of the department of psychiatry at Samaritan Medical Center, Watertown.

Vargas received his medical degree from San Marcos University, Lima, Peru. He completed a residency in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolic diseases in Paris, France, and returned to Peru, where he was on the medical staff of Southern Peru Hospital. He moved to Canada and the United States, where he completed a residency in psychiatry at Case Western University, Metro Health Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio.

Vargas is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

“Upstate New York is in great need for mental health care and I am hoping that my services will help fill that need,” Vargas said. “I am looking forward to being a part of Claxton-Hepburn’s growing Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) program. The Medical Center’s reputation of providing high quality mental services like ECT is what drew me here.”

Vargas resides in Ogdensburg with his wife Rosie.

For more information, visit www.claxtonhepburn.org or call (888) 908-2462.