Assembly Chooses New Leaders

At their meeting in New Orleans last month, members of the APA Assembly chose Albert Gaw, M.D., to be the Assembly’s next speaker-elect. Gaw, who is completing a year as the Assembly’s recorder, outpolled Area 3 Representative Lawrence Kline, M.D., of Bethesda, Md. Gaw is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and medical director of the San Francisco Mental Health Rehabilitation Facility. Gaw has been a member of the Assembly since 1988, when he represented the Caucus of Asian-American Psychiatrists. He is a former chair of the APA Elections Committee and cochair of the APA Caucus of VA Psychiatrists.

Prakesh Desai, M.D., won election to succeed Gaw in the recorder post. Desai is the Area 4 representative to the Assembly and is chief of staff of the VA Chicago Health Care System’s West Side Division. He is a professor of psychiatry and associate dean at the University of Illinois School of Medicine.

Desai’s opponent was Barton Blinder, M.D., an Assembly representative for the Orange County (Calif.) Psychiatric Society.