Chester “Chet” Schmidt Jr., former director of psychiatry at what is now Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and likely the longest-serving faculty member in the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, died May 15 after a brief illness at age 89.

Schmidt was a part of Johns Hopkins for 70 years, with 61 in psychiatry. In 1972, he became director of psychiatry at Baltimore City Hospitals (now Johns Hopkins Bayview), a position he held until 2006. He also helped found Chesapeake Physicians, a faculty practice plan that became a national model for physician practice plans.

Jimmy Potash, the Henry Phipps Professor and director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, called Schmidt “one of the longtime pillars of our department’s success.

“Chet was a people-person who loved being a part of Hopkins,” Potash says. “He had a ready smile and a genial manner. He was always well-dressed, typically with bowtie in place, and he had a hearty, youthful look that somehow persisted into his 80s. 

Born in the Bronx, New York, Schmidt earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees at The Johns Hopkins University in 1956 and 1960, respectively. He then completed an internship in medicine at Stanford University Hospital and a residency in psychiatry at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1962, he served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps. In 1967, he joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins as an assistant professor of psychiatry and director of clinical care at the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic.

In his early years at Johns Hopkins, Schmidt served as director of student mental health, and, from 1967–70, as assistant clinical director of the suicidology training program, during which he published prominent publications, including one examining suicide by car crash in what is now JAMA Psychiatry. A later paper indicated that aggressive, “macho” personalities were likely to blame for many car crashes.

In 1971, Schmidt helped found the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit to manage patients with sexual dysfunctions, gender identity issues or psychosexual disorders. He remained involved in that work for more than 50 years, authoring and co-authoring around 50 papers and book chapters on the topic.

Schmidt served as longtime chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) committee on care reimbursement, and he authored several APA books on the subject. He became medical director of Johns Hopkins HealthCare in 2003, where he remained until retiring in 2019.