Michael Jellinek, MD, Wins Child Development Award

Michael Jellinek, MD, Chief of Child Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and President of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, will be recognized by the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics for his work in the field of child development. The Richmond-Coleman Award will be presented to Dr. Jellinek at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition in October in Washington, D.C.

The Richmond-Coleman Award is endowed thanks to matching funds from the Foundation for Child Development in honor of Dr. Julius Richmond, former Surgeon General of the United States and father of the Head Start program. Additional contributions were donated in memoriam for Justin Coleman, son of Section Past Chair William Coleman, M.D. FAAP. Dr. Jellinek earned his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, completed pediatrics training at Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center, Bronx, NY, and residencies in child psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, MA, and in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital also in Boston. Dr. Jellinek is currently Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

Academically, Dr. Jellinek has written over 200 articles and chapters on pediatric psychiatry, psychosomatic disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the difficult parent among other topics. With Michael Murphy, Ed.D., he developed the Pediatric Symptom Checklist, which is a brief screening instrument that has been validated to help primary care pediatricians identify children with psychosocial dysfunction. The Pediatric Symptom Checklist is used in many clinical settings nationally and has been translated in over 15 languages. Dr. Jellinek has co-edited two books and was section editor for the Handbook of General Psychiatry and the Saunders Manual of Hospital Practice.

Dr. Jellinek served as Chair for Bright Futures in Practice: Mental Health supported by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, providing guidelines on mental health promotion for infants, children and adolescents. He was also recently recognized with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) Irving Philips Award for Prevention for his lifelong contributions to child psychiatry.