Heather Walter | Medical Services
Programs & Services
Languages
- English
Heather Walter | Education
Medical School
Loma Linda University
1974, Loma Linda, CA
Internship
Loma Linda University Medical Center
1975, Loma Linda, CA
Graduate School
University of California Los Angeles
1981, Los Angeles, CA
Residency
Preventive Medicine
University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center
1981, Los Angeles, CA
Residency
General Psychiatry
New York University Medical Center/Bellvue Hospital Center
1986, New York, NY
Fellowship
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric Institute
1988, New York, NY
Heather Walter | Certifications
- American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (Child and Adolescent Psychiatry)
- American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (Psychiatry)
Heather Walter | Professional History
My early career as a federally-funded researcher in preventive medicine/public health focused on school-based preventive interventions targeted at pediatric risk factors (hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, obesity, poor physical fitness, cigarette smoking) for the later development of cardiovascular disease and cancer, and school-based preventive interventions targeted at risk factors (early, unprotected sexual activity) for the development of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS. Subsequently as a child and adolescent psychiatrist, I transitioned my research to integrated behavioral health initiatives in pediatric primary care and school settings. I currently serve as medical director for behavioral health at the Pediatric Physicians’ Organization at Children’s (PPOC), Harvard Medical School course director for the PPOC Behavioral Health Learning Community, medical co-director for the statewide Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project, and consultant to the Boston Children’s Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships program. In addition to my research interests, I have over 30 years of clinical and administrative experience in child and adolescent psychiatry, having served as director of school psychiatry at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, medical director of psychiatric outpatient services at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, and chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Boston Medical Center. I achieved the rank of Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine as well as Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. For more than a decade I have co-chaired the Committee on Quality Issues of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) which is charged with the development of AACAP’s clinical practice guidelines, and have achieved the honor of AACAP Distinguished Fellow.