Dr. Drell was born in Chicago and raised in Rockford, Illinois. After obtaining his A.B. in English at the University of Illinois-Urbana in 1970, and his M.D. at the University of Illinois Medical School in Chicago in 1974, Dr. Drell did a rotating internship at Weiss Hospital in Chicago, which at the time was affiliated with the University of Illinois Medical School. He then completed a child psychiatry fellowship at Boston Children’s/Judge Baker Guidance Center from 1975-1977 and a community psychiatry oriented general psychiatric residency at Cambridge Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1977-1979. After his formal training, he headed South to the Baylor College of Medicine from 1979-1987. During that time, he served in many capacities, from Assistant Head of a child and adolescent psychiatry outpatient clinic to Associate Training Director to Training Director to Acting Head. In the early 1980’s, he started the first infant psychiatry clinic in the South and promoted the idea of infant psychiatry and its importance in training. He wrote an early infant training curriculum with members of the AACAP Infant Committee that was sent to all child psychiatry training programs in the United States, and then helped the Infant Committee to create an infant consultation team to enhance infant training. Both successful projects were funded by the Abramson Fund of the Academy.

In 1987, Dr. Drell transferred to New Orleans where he became the Head of the Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychiatry division at Louisiana State University's Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. He helped re-start the division and its child psychiatry residency training program. In 1991, he was asked by the State of Louisiana to be Clinical Director of the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, a 124 bed long-term stay public psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents with the goal of transforming it into a system of care guided by Child and Adolescent Service System Program (CASSP) principles. He spent the next decade-and-a-half on this project, which ended in a successful system of care with 15 child/adolescent beds, five outpatient clinics, a mobile clinic (bought in the past with Campaign for America’s Kids funds), a crisis center, respite care, ACT teams, and case management. This system was closed after Hurricane Katrina (August 31, 2009) for economic and political reasons.

Throughout his career, Dr. Drell has worked diligently in those national organizations that support his key roles as a child and adolescent psychiatrist (AACAP), a Head of a child division (Society of Professors of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry), and as Training Director (American Association of Directors of Psychiatry Residency Training). He has served on many committees in these organizations and has been elected President of each of them. At AACAP, he has been editor of AACAPNews, Chair of the Assembly of Regional Organizations, and served two terms as Treasurer. He has an ongoing fascination and respect for therapy and is perhaps best known for his ongoing column “Clinical Vignettes” which has run in the AACAPNews since 1992.

During his inaugural address entitled “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” Dr. Drell focuses on the history of child and adolescent psychiatry and its present and future challenges. He makes suggestions on how best to plan for these challenges. During his address, he introduces his Presidential Initiatives that derive from and build upon the theme of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.