Howie Levin, M.D.
Howie Levin, M.D. is a board-certified child psychiatrist at St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN), where he serves as Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Health. Dr. Levin was recently named as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Levin is also a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine (LKSOM) as well as a core faculty member of the general psychiatry residency training program. As a mentor and educator, Dr. Levin provides guidance on residency applications, professional development, training pathways, and clinical competencies. His mentorship spans psychiatric trainees, medical students, and advanced practitioners across inpatient, outpatient, and consultative settings.
Spotlight on Lehigh Valley Chapter of Pennsylvania Psychiatric Society
There has been a boom of growth of psychiatric training and care across the Lehigh Valley over the past 10 years. Three of the major health networks located throughout the Lehigh Valley opened training programs over the last decade- Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN- Jefferson), St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN), and Tower Health- Reading Hospital all started general psychiatry residency training programs around 2019- 2020. In 2022, SLUHN also opened a rural residency psychiatry training program. To provide more specialized training, LVHN began a two-year child psychiatry fellowship program in July 2023 and addiction medicine fellowship in July 2025. SLUHN began an addiction medicine fellowship in July 2024 with plans to start an addiction psychiatry fellowship in July 2026.
There has been a significant expansion in mental health programming and levels of psychiatric care in the Lehigh Valley in the context of the major growth of the health networks. In 2017, Reading Hospital completed an acquisition of five hospitals in the region and rebranded itself as Tower Health. In 2021, St. Luke’s acquired Penn Foundation which was a community-based mental health organization primarily based out of Sellersville, PA and re-branded to St. Luke’s Penn Foundation behavioral health. In 2024, Lehigh Valley Health Network merged with Jefferson, increasing its footprint across the Lehigh Valley and greater Philadelphia region.
Regarding psychiatric services, in January 2022, St. Luke’s opened its first Adolescent Behavioral Health Unit at the Easton Campus and first adolescent PHP program at Sacred Heart campus in 2024 serving ages 12-18 to complement the other child and adolescent inpatient and partial hospitalization services in the region offered at LVHN and Kids Peace. The St. Luke’s merger with Penn Foundation led to addiction services, community-based mental health initiatives such as FACT and ACT teams, family-based services, and residential programming being added to the St. Luke’s hospital network. Lehigh Valley Health Network and Universal Health Services is set to open a new behavioral health hospital in Hanover Township- Hanover Hill Behavioral Health over the next few months in 2026. To help provide integrated mental health care services, both St. Luke’s University Health Network and Lehigh Valley Health Network have school-based psychotherapy initiatives that have greatly expanded since the pandemic, providing in-school therapy options to children and adolescents while attempting to minimize school interruptions and transportation barriers to care.
Outside of the big health networks, private psychiatric practitioners have also expanded their services greatly across the Lehigh Valley. One of our past Lehigh chapter presidents Dr. Muhamad Rifai has a multi-location psychiatric practice Blue Mountain Psychiatry with locations in Palmerton, Easton, and Stroudsburg, serving the greater Lehigh Valley and Poconos region with addiction services, general mental health care, and neuro-stimulation treatments. Our current chapter president-elect Dr. John-Paul Gomez and past chapter president Dr. Courtney Chellew serve as chief medical officer (CMO) and deputy chief medical officer respectively of Water Gap Wellness which is a comprehensive mental health & addiction treatment center offering PHP, IOP, outpatient care, and dual‑diagnosis treatment in a retreat‑like setting in the Poconos.
With the enormous growth of training and psychiatric services across the Lehigh Valley, the Lehigh chapter has also been steadily growing in membership and engagement. When St. Luke’s and LVHN started their general psychiatry residency programs, the Lehigh chapter of PaPS held a welcoming event for all the new residents in the region and has annually held a graduation event to celebrate the accomplishments of all the Lehigh Valley programs as the trainees move on from training into their attending years. Our chapter also hosts an annual holiday networking dinner with educational content on the new and upcoming psychiatric treatments. We also have a social networking event such as board game, movie, or golf simulation night in the fall as well as an educational forum, case conference, or career panel discussion in the spring. We have seen engagement from trainees with resident representatives from the local programs on the executive committee and filled all our officer positions in the last election cycle. Heading into the next decade, we hope to continue to grow as a chapter and collaborate with the other small chapters to build a stronger Pennsylvania Psychiatric Society across all regions of the state.