Annual Meeting Offers Opportunity to Learn From International Colleagues

The COVID-19 pandemic has touched every corner of the world and left few immune to its serious mental health consequences, highlighting the importance of collaboration and communication among psychiatrists across the globe. APA’s Annual Meeting offers one of the best opportunities of the year to connect with international colleagues, and this year’s meeting is no exception.

Several sessions at the Annual Meeting will examine mental health issues in different parts of the world and how they connect, featuring members of the APA Caucus on Global Mental Health, the World Association of Social Psychiatry, and the World Psychiatric Association, among others. Some sessions will focus on the pandemic’s far-reaching impact, providing attendees with the opportunity to learn about international collaborations in psychiatric research related to the pandemic, as well as social psychiatry’s role in reducing stigma and instituting psychosocial interventions during and after the pandemic.

But the sessions will also reach beyond the scope of the pandemic, examining modern-day examples of colonization, or appropriation, in medicine and ways to acknowledge and challenge oppression and inequalities; exploring the unprecedented rise in Islamophobia and the impact on the mental well-being of Muslim professionals; and examining the barriers that Latinx and Hispanic populations face in accessing effective mental health care.

“Psychiatrists across the globe are unified in the fight to ensure access to quality psychiatric care in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A., who is a presenter in one of the sessions (see below). “It is more important than ever that we collaborate and learn from each other as we look toward the future.” ■