March 31, 2005

Dear Colleagues,

After 33 years of leadership, Chester W. Schmidt Jr., M.D., plans to step down as director of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and divisional chief of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. A national search is under way for an individual of outstanding clinical, academic, and administrative credentials to replace Dr Schmidt. In the interim, he will continue to serve as department director and also in his current roles as chairman of the Medical Board at Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, chief medical officer of Johns Hopkins Health Care and behavioral health medical director of Johns Hopkins Health Care.

We salute and thank Chet for his ingenuity and leadership of the department, the hospital Medical Board and the physicians group (originally known as Chesapeake Physicians, P.A.). He successfully navigated the Baltimore City Hospitals financial crises in the early 1970s, the acquisition of BCH by Johns Hopkins Hospital and University in 1984, the incorporation of the physicians group into the Johns Hopkins Clinical Practice Association in 2000, and finally the complete integration in 2003 of the two campus departments of psychiatry.

Chet is widely regarded as one of the founders of the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit (now known as the Center for Sexual Health in Medicine) and his national leadership in developing a coding system for billing for psychiatric services (Psychiatry's CPT Code Book).

Chet obtained his M.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1960, completed his medical house staff training in medicine at Stanford University and his psychiatry residency at Johns Hopkins in 1968 when he joined the faculty. He achieved the rank of full professor in 1990. He will continue to be an active clinician and teacher in the department.

Sincerely,

Gregory Schaffer
President Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center

J. Raymond DePaulo, Jr., M.D.
Director, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences