Jay Cutler, J.D. (left), director of the APA Division of Government Relations for more than 20 years, poses with former APA medical director Melvin Sabshin, M.D., after Cutler was presented an award named in Sabshin’s honor. Sabshin had served as APA medical director for 23 years. The award honors an APA staff member for service above and beyond the call of duty.

APA Medical Director Steven Mirin, M.D., who presented the award at last month’s Assembly meeting, selected Cutler for the honor because of his forceful advocacy at the federal and state levels on behalf of psychiatrists and people with mental illness. These efforts have led to accomplishments such as the 1996 parity law, elimination of the dollar cap on Medicare’s outpatient psychiatric services, termination of the Defense Department’s experiment with training psychologists to prescribe, and substantial increases in the federal budget for biomedical research and mental health services for veterans, children, and Native Americans.