Candidate for ECP Trustee-at-Large

Change has become a way of life at APA. Change has been necessary to bring the organization into line with the wishes of the membership, the economic realities, and the changing face of the way medicine, including psychiatry, is practiced in the country. I would like to continue this process of change at the Board level. The Board must set the example for the membership with fresh approaches to the ever-mounting challenges facing psychiatry. I am committed to helping APA move to be a lean, mean, fighting machine for our members. Change must also include a change in individual members. Individual members must become active in helping the profession to remain viable.

ECPs are a vital part of the new APA, and continuing to seek ways of keeping new psychiatrists involved postresidency is necessary for the continued health of the Association. The ECP trustee can serve a vital link in this process. I will have open access through e-mail and other means to ECPs and other members should I be elected. Organized psychiatry can no longer afford apathy. This must become an activist organization at the individual-member level. The leadership has heard this message and is responding. The district branches are becoming more active, especially in the wake of the New Mexico Mistake. The practicing psychiatrist must also become more aware of the urgency toward activism. The Board must continue to explore ways to encourage this change in consciousness of the membership.

Resources must be dedicated to legislative efforts on the national and state levels. The cancer of the New Mexico Mistake must be contained and then eradicated. Each individual psychiatrist must support the political struggle. Donating funds to the APA PAC and the state or district branch PAC should be a minimum commitment of each psychiatrist in this country. Those who are not currently members should consider joining APA to increase the strength of APA’s voice on Capitol Hill and in the state legislatures.

The area of public relations needs to continue as a potent tool to educate our membership and the public. The good that we do must be communicated effectively. Effective, sustained public relations will make legislative efforts more effective at all levels.

Member dues continue to be a barrier to recruitment and retention. An actual dues decrease should continue to be explored. Reliance on income from the pharmaceutical industry continues to be troublesome. The Board must continue to work on this issue.

We must do a better job of developing an interactive relationship between individual members and the national office, as it is an underutilized resource for the members.

The Board must continue to look for creative ways to support APA’s mission with more limited financial resources. The Board must continue to scrutinize its operating budget.

My practice consists of a full-time private practice in Reno, Nev. I am also a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Nevada, Reno. My duties at the university include teaching psychopharmacology and the diagnosis and treatment of anxiety disorders to residents, and teaching interviewing skills to medical students. I also lecture to physician groups on diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders.

My experience at the DB level as president, treasurer, PAC chair, and newsletter editor, as well as national experience as MIT chair, Assembly ECP rep, the Council on Internal Organization, Government Relations, Budget Committee, Private Practice Committee, Rural Psychiatry member of the Consortium on Special Delivery Settings, and cochair of the APA Executive Leadership Initiative, has given me experience to balance my ECP enthusiasm. My wife, Barbara, is the national treasurer of the APA Alliance. This has broadened my understanding of the workings of the greater organization. I would be pleased to hear from you and answer your questions to the best of my ability. Please contact me at [email protected].