.jpg "Maryland Pao, MD, FACLP, FAPA, FAACAP, FAPOS photo")
Clinical Director, NIMH
NIMH
Dr. Pao is Clinical Director and Deputy Scientific Director of the National Institutes of Mental Health Intramural Research Program at the National Institutes of Health. She is also Acting Clinical Director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. She was Chief of the Psychiatry Consultation Liaison Service in the Hatfield Clinical Research Center 2008-2019 and still serves as an Attending. A native of Bethesda, she attended Wellesley College before completing a BA/MD program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She completed Pediatric and Psychiatric Residency training as well as a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She is board certified in Pediatrics (1994, 2001), General Psychiatry (1994), Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (1994) and Consultation Liaison Psychiatry (2008, 2018).
She studies distress and its correlates including suicidal thoughts and behaviors in medically ill children. She has published more than 150 research articles and chapters. Dr. Pao helped develop the ASQ (Ask Suicide-Screening Questions), a validated suicide risk screening tool for youth and adults in medical settings. Dr. Pao also developed Voicing My CHOICES™, an advance care planning guide for adolescents and young adults. A leader in promoting the field of pediatric consultation liaison psychiatry and integrated care for children, she is a recipient of the 2012 AACAP Simon Wile Award. She is President-Elect of the Academy of Consultation Liaison Psychiatry. She is a Clinical Professor on the faculty at Georgetown University, George Washington University and at Johns Hopkins University Schools of Medicine.
