Building upon the vision and achievements of our founder and father of child psychiatry, Leo Kanner, the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry remains at the forefront of clinical service, professional education, and research. Today, the work of faculty members covers a broad range of psychiatric illnesses with a focus on developing effective treatments. The Division’s multi-disciplinary approach to research and treatment means that child psychiatry at Johns Hopkins has a strong foundation that spans the molecular level to clinical trials.

At the Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has its hospital home in the new Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center, where it provides the highest quality care to young patients through an inpatient unit, a partial hospitalization program, and a consultation service to the other pediatric programs. The Division’s clinical services include hospital-based services, specialty outpatient programs, and community programs. Faculty are based as well at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and the Kennedy Krieger Institute.

The Division is an acknowledged leader in training tomorrow’s experts in the field, offering a range of education and training opportunities that include medical student experience, options for residency training, and clinical and research fellowships.

Meet the Director

John V. Campo, M.D.

Dr. Campo was recently named the Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor and Division Director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He is also the Vice President at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and the Director of Mental Health for the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. The appointment is effective October 1, 2020.

Dr. Campo envisions building in the areas of mental health services research and implementation science, mood and anxiety disorders, suicide prevention, community psychiatry, and developmental neuropsychiatry and neuroscience. He is also eager to strengthen bridges to the world-leading expertise in neurodevelopmental disorders and disabilities at Kennedy Krieger and to further enhance the division’s superb training program in child psychiatry.

Background

Dr. Campo is currently assistant dean for behavioral health, chief behavioral wellness officer, and professor of behavioral medicine and psychiatry at West Virginia University and the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute. He trained in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and did a residency in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He then went to the University of Pittsburgh for a general psychiatry residency and a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship, followed by 15 years on the faculty there.

Before moving to West Virginia, Dr. Campo was at Ohio State for 14 years, serving for seven years as the chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and then for seven more years as chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health.

Dr. Campo’s research interests include mental health services and policy research, the integration of mental health services within general medical settings, the study and prevention of suicide, and the relationship between somatic symptoms and mental disorders. He has authored more than 120 papers and book chapters, and edited the Handbook of Pediatric Psychology and Psychiatry. Dr. Campo has been honored with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Simon Wile Leadership in Consultation Award, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness Exemplary Psychiatrist Award, and has been on the America’s Top Doctors list for 18 years.

Child Psychiatry Began at Hopkins

Leo Kanner, M.D. (1894-1981) was a man of many firsts. Born in Austria and educated in Germany, he immigrated to the United States in 1924. In 1930, shortly after coming to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Professors Adolf Meyer, Director of Psychiatry, and Edwards A. Park, Director of Pediatrics selected Dr. Kanner to develop our nation’s first child psychiatry service in a pediatric hospital.

Dr. Kanner was the first physician in the United States to be identified as a child psychiatrist. His textbook, Child Psychiatry (1935) was the first English language textbook to focus on the psychiatric problems of children. His first use of the term “child psychiatry” in the title so aptly captured the scope of the field that child psychiatry became the formal title of this medical discipline. In 1943, Dr. Kanner first described the syndrome of infantile autism. His concise and cogent clinical descriptions of children with autism continues to inform, and is the standard against which current diagnostic criteria are measured. Dr. Kanner continued as the Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at The Johns Hopkins Hospital until his retirement in 1959, although he remained active until his death at age 87.

The Division strives to continue the work started by Dr. Kanner by integrating empirically based, state-of-the art clinical care, commitment to education and training, and the development and dissemination of new knowledge. The Johns Hopkins Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program is a two-year program dedicated to training academic leaders, master clinicians, productive researchers, and public mental health leaders of the future. All Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellows are called Kanner Fellows to honor the legacy and mission of Dr. Leo Kanner.