AMA President Patrice Harris, M.D., M.A., to Speak at 2020 Annual Meeting

Psychiatrist and AMA President Patrice Harris, M.D., M.A., will be speaking at the Opening Session of this year’s APA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.

A former member of the APA Board of Trustees and chair of the AMA Board, Harris was inaugurated as the 147th president of the AMA at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the AMA House of Delegates in Chicago last June (Psychiatric News).

In addition, Harris continues to serve as chair of the AMA Task Force to Reduce Opioid Abuse. In that role, she has been a leader in calling for greater physician use of state prescription drug monitoring programs while also advocating for better pain management.

Also speaking at the Opening Session are APA President Bruce Schwartz, M.D., and President-elect Jeffrey Geller, M.D., M.P.H.

One of Harris’ goals as AMA president is to elevate the status of mental health as an integral part of overall health and to increase the understanding of the impact of childhood trauma on health. In her inaugural address at the AMA House of Delegates last year, she said, “From my work with patients who’ve been abused, neglected, diagnosed with a mental illness, subject to childhood trauma, who are homeless or unemployed, I have learned that often-overlooked health determinants have an effect on one’s health over a lifetime.”

At her presidential address at the Interim Meeting of the House of Delegates in November, Harris said, “Our patients rely on us to understand that the head is connected to the rest of the body and appreciate the connection between mental health and overall health.”

First elected to the AMA Board of Trustees in 2011, Harris has been active on AMA task forces and committees dealing with such issues as health information technology, payment and delivery reform, and private contracting. She also chaired the AMA Council on Legislation and co-chaired the Women Physicians Congress.

She served as trustee-at-large on the APA Board of Trustees from 2001 to 2004. In addition, she was president of the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association and founding president of the Georgia Psychiatry Political Action Committee.

“Patrice has been a remarkable role model, demonstrating what can be accomplished through participation in organized medicine,” said APA President Bruce Schwartz, M.D. “Her leadership in confronting the opioid epidemic especially, as chair of the AMA’s Task Force to Reduce Opioid Abuse, has been crucial. We are delighted to have the AMA president as our Opening Session speaker.”

Harris, who is the first African American woman president of the AMA, has also vowed to use her presidency to focus on health equity and increasing the diversity of the physician workforce.

“We face big challenges in health care today, and the decisions we make now will move us forward in a future we help create,” she said. “We are no longer at a place where we can tolerate the disparities that plague communities of color, women, and the LGBTQ community. But we are not yet at a place where health equity is achieved in those communities.”

APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A., said that throughout a career of advocacy and leadership in organized medicine, Harris has helped to raise the profile of psychiatry and APA.

“I urge everyone attending this year’s Annual Meeting to come hear what Patrice has to say. She has been a remarkably effective advocate for our profession and our patients.” ■

The Opening Session of APA’s 2020 Annual Meeting will be held Saturday, April 25, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Pennsylvania Convention Center.