BY ANDREA KOTT, M.P.H.
C
onventional keepsakes cover the shelves and walls of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Md. Joseph T. English, M.D.’s office: diplomas, awards and volHe spent the third year of his residency at the NIMH, managing ume upon volume of psychiatry textbooks. But it’s the less a clinical psychiatric unit. By chance, one year later, President “Dr. with English is extremely conventional mementos—pictures of Dr. English first Peace Kennedy’spassionate brother-in-law and Peace Corps director, R. Sargent Corps director R. Sargent Shriver Jr., at the funeralensuring of Presidentthat students Shriver Jr., saw the paper. about know thatShriver had been looking for a chief John F. Kennedy, and shaking the hand of Pope John Paul II—that psychiatrist for the Peace Corps. He drafted Dr. English for the job. they’re the advocates for their field of medicine.” best illustrate his journey to becoming one of the nation’s foreThe timing couldn’t have been better. “I had been sitting in my most leaders in psychiatry, public health and health care policy. Oded Tal, School of Medicine Class 2016reading an article in the Sunday New York office at the of NIMH, Dr. English’s rise from medical school to his current position as Times about JFK’s call for a New Frontier and how it was exciting the Sidney E. Frank Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and to young people all over the country and I thought, “What am I Behavioral Sciences was meteoric—and serendipitous. He chose doing here?” He accepted Shriver’s offer. psychiatry because it offered the broadest platform for helping From 1962 to 1966, he directed the mental health components of people, especially the underserved. What he didn’t expect were the Peace Corps selection process, and of its training and field supthe leadership chances that came his way. “Medicine is replete port of 12,000 volunteers serving in 55 countries. He also helped to with opportunities for service,” says Dr. English, standing in the recruit and train more than 100 Peace Corps physicians who served picture-filled room where he hosts a health policy elective for overseas helping to keep the volunteers healthy. “I really had no first- and second-year medical students. “I want students to see preparation for what I was doing!” Dr. English says with disarming how they can be helpful beyond the individual patient to the candor. He hadn’t even finished his final year of residency. community.”
DEFYING TRADITION From his early days as an aspiring medical student, Dr. English was service bound. He also eluded tradition. Rather than follow a standard pre-med track by majoring in biology and pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree, he majored in philosophy and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Joseph’s College in his native Philadelphia. “I did not behave like the normal pre-med,” he says, his face breaking into a wide, warm smile. “Instead of spending weekends studying pig embryos, I was more interested in whether there was a conflict between psychiatric theory and theology.” Early in his studies at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, also in Philadelphia, Dr. English knew that he wanted to pursue psychiatry. He was particularly interested in studies pointing to late adolescence as an ideal time for mental health intervention. His curiosity about late adolescent development inspired his own research—part of his psychiatric residency at Philadelphia’s Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital—on the effects that the culture of a small liberal arts college might have on late adolescents’ emerging social values. As part of his investigation, in 1960, Dr. English launched a student mental health center at his alma mater, the Jesuit-run Saint Joseph’s College, with the full support of the hospital. This project, in addition to fostering collaboration between a psychiatric facility and a Catholic institution (and dismissing concerns about conflicts between theology and psychiatry), opened the first major door of Dr. English’s career.
FAST TRACK The paper that Dr. English wrote presenting his study findings put him on a fast track to a prestigious research fellowship at
CLIMBING THE LADDER In time, Shriver came to rely so strongly on the young psychiatrist’s skills that he enlisted his help in organizing President Kennedy’s funeral. Then, in 1966, he appointed Dr. English as Director for Health Affairs of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) in the Executive Office of the President. The new assignment entailed developing the Community Health Centers program, as well as the health programs of Head Start, the Job Corps, Vista and other programs of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. Dr. English, who had long been interested in serving underprivileged populations, found deep satisfaction in his work at the OEO. But the 1968 presidential election ushered in a new administration and with it, a new opportunity: to be chief administrator of the Health and Mental Health Services Administration (HMHSA)—the largest health agency of what was then the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. “They’d seen me coordinate the health activities of the federal government during the War on Poverty,” he says, still sounding somewhat incredulous, these many years later, at his continued rise in government. At HMHSA, Dr. English again proved impactful. He managed an annual budget of more than $1.4 billion, a staff of 23,000 employees, and a constellation of agencies that included the National Institute of Mental Health, Communicable Disease Center; Regional Medical Programs Service; Community Health Service; Family Planning Services and Maternal and Child Health Service, among others. By 1970, Dr. English was ready to leave Washington, D.C., and once again, timing was on his side. New York City Mayor John Lindsay asked him to be the first president and CEO of the New
New York Medical College
23