Dr. Peter Dozier

Psychiatry and Psychology

American Board of Psychiatry

Child/Adolescent Psychiatry

Medical School: Eastern Virginia Medical School

Residency: Sentara Norfolk General

Fellowship: Johns Hopkins

Having trained at CHKD, it always remained the home to which Dr. Dozier longed to return. He did that in 2008, opening the division of child psychiatry and psychology. It allowed him the opportunity not only to work directly with children and families, but to extend care through helping pediatricians in their work with this very underserved population.  

Dr. Dozier grew up on both sides of the Atlantic, the son of a roving foreign correspondent. Frustrations through school led to a premature departure from high school and to brief careers in journalism, photography, and retail sales before he was inspired to become a physician for children.

A general equivalency diploma and community college opened pathways to medical school, a pediatric internship at CHKD, a fellowship, and chief residency in child psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital. After a stimulating variety of practice settings, his journey eventually brought him back to CHKD.

These life experiences taught him the value of being persistent, embracing change and following one’s heart. He has used these lessons to help him work with children whose development has been detoured by adversity, academic frustration, emotional dysregulation, or unhappy social experience.

Dr. Dozier has a passion for helping families, teaching residents, planning conferences, and helping program development.

Outside CHKD, he relishes spending time with his two adult daughters and their families who live in the area, visiting his other adult children living in far-flung places, and playing with six grandchildren – one at a time.

• Preschoolers with early-onset psychiatric symptoms
• Strong-willed children whose difficult behaviors are interwoven with psychiatric symptoms
• Children with treatment-challenged depressive and anxiety disorders
• Individualized and reasoned pediatric psychopharmacology
• Helping parents to parent high-risk children using evidence-based behavioral strategies
• Encouraging families to center most attention on the strengths of the child

• Coastal Virginia Magazine "Top Doc" 2014-2022

"Every day, I feel grateful to work with our amazing providers and to support our remarkable families. I am also thankful to be a part of an ambitious expansion of mental health services that will, without exaggeration, bring the best-of-the-best clinicians to deliver care with innovative programming in a state-of-the-art pediatric mental health center."