As Dr. Carol Vidal begins her term as Maryland Psychiatric Society (MPS) President this month, she has enlisted a highly capable team of committee chairs who will head up important MPS efforts to better serve the MPS members and the mental health needs of the citizens of Maryland. Additional committee members will be appointed later this month. A member survey will go out soon to gain insights into their priorities for the coming year.

Dr. Vidal comes into this new role with deep MPS experience, including serving in the community psychiatry and diversity and legislative committees, and more recently as a member of the council. She is passionate about mental health prevention and access, especially among children and adolescents and under-resourced populations.

In her inaugural column in the May 2023 MPS News, she relates, “my hope is that MPS will continue with our advocacy in Annapolis with a focus not only for mental health treatment, but also prevention; that we will continue to find creative ways to financially sustain this organization that has thrived through many phases and continues to adapt to very quickly changing environments; and that MPS will remain the hub for our profession, where connections serve the group and the individual in the best possible ways.”

Dr. Carol Vidal is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She works clinically in the Bayview Expanded School-Based mental health program, co-located in Baltimore City Schools, where she evaluates and treats children and adolescents with behavioral and mood disorders. She completed her M.D. and PhD at the School of Medicine of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, her MPH from Drexel University in Philadelphia, and residency in general psychiatry and fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.