Candidate for Trustee-at-Large
About the Candidate
Life Fellow, 1954
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Area 2 Trustee - Executive Committee, NYS Psychiatric Association/Area 2, 1996-
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Private Practice, Subspecialty Addiction, NYC, 1958-
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Clinical Assistant Psychiatrist, Associate Attending, Mt. Sinai-NYU Medical Center; St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, NYC, 1958-
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Representative, NY County District Branch, APA Assembly, 1990-96
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Chair, Committee on Psychiatric Medicine of the NYS Medical Society - Liaison to the NYS Psychiatric Association - Impaired Physicians Program, 1975-96
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APA Finance/Budget and DB Relations Committees, 1997-
Candidate’s Views
The task: This is a critical time for our country, and for our profession. Our insularity has been shattered, the psychological effects ripple out, the mental health crisis deepens. Our profession will now have to deal with the long-term effects of the crisis in addition to the illnesses we have always been caring for, under a health care system undermining good care.
APA fights this with strong legislative and regulatory initiatives, litigation, and public affairs, at local, state, and national levels. It intervenes with government and private industry and confronts managed behavioral care. We’ve had significant victories with parity, gag rules, scope-of-practice extension, patients’ rights, mental health care coverage, confidentiality, and reimbursement. But there is more to be done.
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Universal coverage, with adequate coverage for children.
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Cultural and minority diversity in our leadership and membership to provide better care for minorities and the disadvantaged.
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Support for IMGs.
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Increased funding for the public sector.
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More support for the academic-hospital networks that provide safety nets for the poor, do the research that creates better treatments, and teach the next generation of psychiatrists.
The vehicle: Essential to all this is a strong, efficient APA. Without that we are fragmented, weakened.
We must revitalize it, tighten its financial workings, cut expenditures, fix its information system, increase its efficiency, control better its entrepreneurial and commercial activities, increase the communication between central APA and the DBs and members, and retain and recruit members, especially minorities, early career psychiatrists, and the public sector.
If we can’t do these core functions, we can’t do advocacy.
The work: I’ve worked in the NYS Medical Society and in APA in my DB, state organization, Assembly, and the Board, as Area 2 Trustee, on APA’s Committees on Finance and Budget, Revenue Sharing, DB Relations, Addiction Psychiatry, Information Technology, and other committees and task forces. APA has had its share of organizational difficulties, and I have devoted myself on the Board toward helping make APA a more effective organization. A few recent examples of some of my initiatives:
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A work group developing an outside expert business and financial advisory panel to help put APA on an efficient basis and for consultation re entrepreneurial activities and commercial relationships, some troubled, some costly.
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Another work group that has gotten APA management to meet with the DBs and governance to turn around our information service that had not been functioning properly, and to establish its credibility before further spending.
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Helping to end automatic dues increases, prioritizing expenditures, cutting waste, creating a functional budget, and publishing details of the medical director’s contract.
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Membership on task forces to reorganize APA and share APA’s nondues income with the DBs.
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Initiating early career and minority Board representation.
Personal: I’m in private practice in New York, subspecialty in addiction, on the clinical faculties of NYU-Mt. Sinai and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt, board certified, APA life fellow, board examiner, NY Academy of Medicine Fellow, advocate for APA on AMA’s CPT code advisory committee, founding member of my state medical society’s impaired physicians program, and recipient of awards from my state medical society, DB, and state organization.
I’m running for trustee to continue the work for change, to strengthen APA for its advocacy. I’m asking for your help.
Primary Loci of Work and Sources of Income
Work: 90%—Office, 110 East 87 Street, N.Y.C.
10%—Mt. Sinai Hospital, N.Y.C.
Income: 100%—Solo private practice
Information & Authors
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History
Published online: 7 December 2001
Published in print: December 7, 2001
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