APA Members at Work for their Patients and Colleaques : Washington, D.C. Fall Component Meetings September 9-12, 2004

APA's fall component meetings are a key setting for 70 of the Association's councils, committees, and task forces to plan and discuss the initiatives that propel APA toward its goals on behalf of psychiatrists and their patients. Last month about 300 members came to Washington, D.C., to contribute their expertise on issues concerning children, minority patients, the elderly, and people in jails and prisons, among others. Psychiatric research, forensic and legal issues, addiction treatment, and advocacy were also the focus of dozens of council and committee meetings.

A plenary session on Saturday, September 11, featured APA President Michelle Riba, M.D., who emphasized how critical it is for APA to have a forceful strategy to respond to the extremely well-funded effort by psychologists to prescribe psychoactive medications to prevent additional states from taking the road paved by New Mexico and Louisiana. “The day I took office in May as APA president, the governor of Louisiana signed the bill allowing psychologists to prescribe in that state,” she noted.“ While the action took many of us by surprise, the passage of the bill took years of careful planning, years of considerable resources, and political capital on the part of the psychologists. At the June meeting of the APA Board, we focused on this issue. We brought in knowledgeable leaders from other medical groups who convinced us that the psychologists have allocated large sums of money and have a long-term, multistate strategy. They are very aggressive and persistent... .It is therefore critical for our membership and for our patients that we forcefully address this issue and develop a meaningful strategy to respond.” And APA's years-long effort to halt the psychologists' prescribing campaign, which has led to the defeat of such bills in states throughout the country, Riba said, is being enhanced and strengthened. She said she intends to involve all APA members in planning APA's future response to this critical concern for psychiatrists and patients.▪