AMA’s Incoming President to Deliver Distinguished Psychiatrist Lecture

From serving as a member of APA’s Board of Trustees to president-elect of the AMA, Patrice Harris, M.D., has been a force in organized medicine.

She will assume office in June as the first African-American woman president of the AMA. And just weeks before that, Harris will deliver a Distinguished Psychiatrist lecture at the APA Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Her address, titled “Psychiatry’s Seat at the Table of Organized Medicine,” will be presented Tuesday, May 21.

Harris will share her leadership journey in medicine and the lessons she has learned along the way. She also will share the AMA’s strategic priorities and how they relate to the practice of psychiatry, with a particular focus on achieving greater equity within the health care system and fighting the nation’s opioid epidemic.

Active in organized medicine her entire career, Harris was a member of the APA Board of Trustees from 1994 to 2004. The AMA Board of Trustees appointed her to the AMA Council on Legislation in 2003, and she was elected by the council in 2010 to serve as its chair.

In 2011, she was elected to the AMA Board of Trustees. Four years later she was re-elected and was chosen by her fellow Board members to be chair-elect, a position she assumed in 2016. At last year’s meeting, the AMA House of Delegates elected her president-elect of the Association.

Harris has also been chair of the AMA’s Task Force to Reduce Opioid Abuse. In an address to the APA Assembly last year, Harris said the opioid epidemic was initially driven by overprescription of opioids, but it is now increasingly related to use of heroin and fentanyl. “We need to bring down the number of prescriptions for opioids, and the AMA strongly urges physicians to make use of state prescription drug monitoring programs [PDMPs],” she told representatives.

Harris said physicians’ increasing adoption of PDMPs is a success story, noting that participation has increased in states that do not mandate participation as well as those that do. “If PDMPs are user friendly, physicians will participate,” she said.

But while the use of PDMPs is a necessary tool for decreasing the opioid crisis, it isn’t sufficient. “We are trying to broaden the conversation to get policymakers to consider a range of options, especially policies that make medication-assisted treatment accessible and affordable.” That includes access to the three medications approved for the treatment of opioid dependence: buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone.

APA President Altha Stewart, M.D., said Harris is a role model for using the power of organized medicine for the benefit of patients and public health. “Patrice’s commitment to leadership within APA and the AMA is an example of how physicians who work together with fellow physicians can make extraordinary things happen,” Stewart said. “I urge Annual Meeting attendees to come and hear what she has to say.”

In addition to her roles at APA and the AMA, Harris has held many leadership positions at the state level as well, including serving as a member of the board and president of the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association and the founding president of the Georgia Psychiatry Political Action Committee. The district branch honored her as Psychiatrist of the Year in 2007. Harris has also served on the Medical Association of Georgia’s Council on Legislation, Committee on Constitution and Bylaws, and Membership Task Force.

Children’s health has been a motivating passion throughout her career. At Emory, where she trained in psychiatry and completed a child and adolescent and forensics fellowship, she addressed public policy for abused and neglected children before the Georgia legislature and in public education programs.

As past director of Health Services for Fulton County, Ga., which includes Atlanta, Harris was the county’s chief health officer, overseeing all county health-related programs and functions, including a wide range of public safety, behavioral health, and primary care treatment and prevention services. She spearheaded the county’s efforts to integrate public health, behavioral health, and primary care services. Harris also served as medical director for the Fulton County Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. ■

“Psychiatry’s Seat at the Table of Organized Medicine” will be held Tuesday, May 21, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Moscone Center.