The 2021–2022 academic year got off to a good start when we learned that, for the second consecutive year, we were ranked the nation’s #1 hospital for psychiatry by U.S. News & World Report. The recent email below in praise of our Women’s Reproductive Mental Health fellow helps to explain why that distinction is merited:

I have been a patient of Dr. Julia Riddle’s for the past two years. I’m writing to commend her care, expertise, brilliance and commitment to her patients … When I first met her, I was at a very low point in my life — anxious, depressed and lost. With no “road map” to follow, I reached out … and got connected to Dr. Riddle. Little did I know that two years later, I would feel this bond and amazing care I had never experienced within the psychiatric world ... I can’t begin to tell you the difference I have felt being under her care. I know I can always reach out to her, and even with her ridiculously busy schedule, I will receive a response within 24 hours … She has shown me steps to take in my mental wellness and made me realize attributes I never thought I had. I have come so far and know I have, with her guidance, a future of finding the “best me”… With sun on my back and a bright future ahead, I’m thanking Dr. Riddle for making this possible.

Dr. Riddle practices what we preach: a deep commitment to our patients — a defining feature of Johns Hopkins psychiatrists. Also central to our mission is creating next-generation approaches to care. In that vein, we were thrilled to learn recently that Dr. Matt Johnson was awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to test psilocybin as a treatment for smoking addiction — remarkable for its being the first NIH grant for a treatment study of a classic psychedelic in more than 50 years! This constitutes a real sea change, and is an important stamp of approval for the scientific legitimacy of this program of investigation.

Jimmy Potash, M.D., M.P.H.
Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Department Director and Psychiatrist-in-Chief, Johns Hopkins Medicine