Keith Cheng

In 1982, Dr. Cheng received his M.D. degree at Loma Linda University where he also completed his general psychiatry residency training. He subsequently trained at Yale University where he completed a post-doctoral fellowship in child psychiatry in 1990. Dr. Cheng is Board Certified in both General and Child Psychiatry.

Dr. Cheng joined Trillium Family Services (TFS) as Medical Director in 2001. His duties as Medical Director extended to all three TFS campuses: Children’s Farm Home, Parry Center for Children, and Wake Robin in Salem. As TFS grew in size, Dr. Cheng was promoted to Chief Medical Officer in 2010. Dr. Cheng brings medical leadership to the TFS executive team and oversight, through two regional medical directors, for all TFS clinical programs. Currently, he provides guidance and expertise to TFS research projects, community collaborations, clinical initiatives and program development.

Dr. Cheng is well known as a senior child psychiatrist in the mental health community after 25 years of practice in Oregon. He has practiced at every level of clinical care, from traditional outpatient to state hospital and intensive community treatment service programs. He is presently adjunct associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU) and teaches and supervises trainees in the Division of Child Psychiatry. For his many years of instruction at OHSU, he was recently recognized with a distinguished teaching award. In addition to his duties at Trillium Family Services, Dr. Cheng serves as the Medical Director of Oregon Psychiatric Access Line about Kids (OPAL-K) at OHSU. OPAL-K is an innovative consultation program for primary care providers to support them in providing mental health care in the “medical home.” This demonstration project is funded through a $1.5 million state grant.

Dr. Cheng has been involved in many state and community mental health projects. He served on Governor Kitzhaber’s Task Force on Youth Suicide Prevention. He served as a teacher for the Portland Police Bureau’s Crisis Intervention Training Program. While at Emanuel Hospital, he was a member of the Legacy Hospital IRB. He was also on the committee that helped develop the initial child psychiatric portion of the Oregon Health Plan. Presently, he serves on an Oregon Youth Authority (OYA) community advisory council. Other community involvement includes being on the boards of Chamber Music Northwest and Park Academy, a school for dyslexic youth.

Dr. Cheng has published in peer-reviewed journals and has made numerous presentations at national and international psychiatric meetings. Through primary care clinician education, Dr. Cheng has a special interest in promoting the provision of psychiatric care to youth in Oregon, in the “medical home.” His two editions of “Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: The Essentials,” a textbook created for primary care clinicians, is considered a best seller by his publisher Williams & Wilkins. He also provides mentorship to OHSU psychiatry trainees and medical students. His trainees have presented research at local, national and international psychiatric meetings in Portland, Honolulu, Paris, Durban, and Toronto.

Dr. Cheng has held several clinical leadership positions in Oregon. From 1990 to 1992, he served as the Medical Director for the Adolescent Inpatient Program at Portland Adventist Medical Center. From 1992-1994, he was the Clinical Director for the Child Psychiatric Program at Holladay Park Medical Center. From 1995-1997, Dr. Cheng was Medical Director of the ADHD Clinic at OHSU. From 1994-2000, he served as the Medical Director of Child & Adolescent Treatment Psychiatric services at Emanuel Hospital. He also worked as a staff psychiatrist at Clackamas County Mental Health from 2000-2001. He is a past president of the Oregon Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. For his “leadership, innovation, and impact on Oregon’s Children and families, Dr. Cheng received the “Rose Otte Award,” from the Oregon Alliance of Children’s Programs in 2015.