Members Choose Sharfstein As APA’s Next President-Elect

Steven S. Sharfstein, M.D., of Baltimore was chosen by APA members to be their next president-elect for the term beginning in May. He defeated Jagannathan Srinivasaraghavan, M.D. (Dr. Van), of Anna, Ill., with 66.5 percent of the vote.

Sharfstein, who is currently APA’s senior vice president, is president of the nonprofit Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore and clinical professor and vice chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He served as APA secretary from 1991 to 1995 and is a former APA deputy medical director.

Srinivasaraghavan is professor and chief of the Division of Community and Public Psychiatry at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and medical director of the Choate Mental Health Center in Anna, Ill. He is also the Caucus of Asian-American Psychiatrists’ representative to the APA Assembly and a member of the Council on Social Issues and Public Psychiatry.

Sharfstein told Psychiatric News that he plans to focus his presidency on advocating for patients and the profession of psychiatry, as well as on “the quality of what we offer to all Americans.” He exhorted other APA members to join him in this work and pointed out the need for nonmember psychiatrists to make APA’s voice stronger by becoming members.

“APA is the premier professional organization representing psychiatric medicine and as such the most important voice to advocate for our patients and our professional values,” he said. “From our increasingly effective treatments based on the expanding science of psychiatry to public health and public policy, APA must lead for us all. Psychiatrists need to become more active in this advocacy role. They need to belong to APA and participate at the community, state, and national levels.”

In one of the two three-way races in this year’s election, Carolyn Robinowitz, M.D., of Bethesda, Md., defeated Albert Gaw, M.D., of San Francisco and Patrice Harris, M.D., of Decatur, Ga., for the office of treasurer. Robinowitz, who won with 58.9 percent of the vote, is a private practitioner, a member of the Board of Directors of American Psychiatric Publishing Inc., and an APA delegate to the AMA House of Delegates.

In races in which there are more than two candidates, APA uses a “preferential voting system” in which voters are asked to rank the candidates in the order in which they would like to see them win. If no candidate garners a majority on the first round of counting, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated, and the second-choice votes on the ballots cast for him or her are distributed to the remaining candidates. In the race for treasurer, Robinowitz won on the first round of counting.

In the election’s other three-way race, Renée Binder, M.D., of San Francisco emerged as the winner of the trustee-at-large contest in the second round of counting with 58 percent of the vote. Her opponents were Jeffrey L. Geller, M.D., M.P.H., of Worcester, Mass., and Michael Vergare, M.D., of Philadelphia.

APA members-in-training chose Daniel T. Mamah, M.D., of Washington University in St. Louis to be their next member-in-training trustee-elect. Mamah defeated John Kuzma, M.D., of the University of Iowa in Iowa City with 65.7% of the vote.

Two of APA’s seven Areas elected a trustee this year. Roger Peele, M.D., was re-elected as the Area 3 trustee in an uncontested race. In Area 6 Thomas Ciesla, M.D., defeated Barry Chaitin, M.D., with 56.5 percent of the vote.

The tenure of the newly elected Board members begins at the close of APA’s 2004 annual meeting in May. At that time the current president-elect, Michelle Riba, M.D., will become APA president.

The 2004 election reflects for the first time changes made to the composition of the Board of Trustees since the Board voted to downsize itself in late 2002. The plan called for eliminating one of the two vice-president positions and combining the secretary and treasurer positions. APA voting members approved these changes in the 2003 election.

Pedro Ruiz, M.D., who was elected for a two-year term in the 2003 election, is now APA’s sole vice president. Robinowitz, who was elected treasurer in the 2004 election, will become secretary-treasurer in 2005, at the end of the term of the current secretary, Nada Stotland, M.D.

This year, there were 30,261 eligible voting members. Of that number, 31.1 percent, or 9,408, voted. Approximately 8 percent of those voting did so online.

Detailed election results appear in the chart below. ▪