APA Helps DB/SA Executives Hone Communication Skills

Media training by APA staff provided insights the executives could share with their members on how to communicate with representatives of different types of media outlets and get their views across in the clearest and most concise manner possible. APA staff who participated in the training urged attendees to try to place as many informative articles and story ideas as possible in their local media as a way to urge better mental health policy and publicize district branch activities. Such placement, they pointed out, is free and more credible to readers than advertising.

Carolyn Robinowitz, M.D., APA president-elect, told the DB/SA executives that she will dedicate her presidential term to improving how psychiatry communicates its message to the world. As one effective strategy, she encouraged the executives to find personal stories of successful struggles with mental illness to show the media that mental illness is real and that there are real and effective treatments for it.

After the media training, Paige De Mille, executive director of the Utah Psychiatric Association, said her office will benefit in particular from the information on communication and media relations.

“The media training helped with the fear that we had to respond to every call from any media outlet, instead of focusing on the important calls that deal directly with us,” De Mille said.

Now she will be able to help her DB develop a more strategic approach to deciding where to place its limited resources, instead of taking on any worthy project a member suggests.

“May be this way we can focus a little better and get more done,” she said.

The meeting also offered presentations and discussions on financing and improving the DBs/SAs' non-duesrelated income. That issue was important to Margulies, who described a “crisis” in funding as pharmaceutical companies tightened their grant-making in recent years.

During a discussion of strategies to improve funding, Meagan Floyd, executive director of the Maryland Psychiatric Society, described her office's unusual ability to earn significant income from the publication of an annual directory of its member physicians. The directories are free to members, but they include paid ads and are sold to nonmember physicians and private companies.

“It's tough to get grants now because all of the applications are different, and the information they require varies a lot, so we're always looking for alternate sources of income,” Floyd said.

Other attendees said their DB/SA has decided to begin assessing late fees for members who are late paying their dues and small fees for member events that used to be free, such as CME sessions and dinners.

Discussions among the DB/SA executives also brought to light better ways in which their offices could serve their members, such as regular queries asking what types of information the members would like the office to provide. One such request resulted in a popular small-business tax seminar for solo practitioners.

Among efforts to expand membership, attendees were told to conduct outreach to as many psychiatry residents as possible with the understanding that for every 10 they contact, only one will become a member.

Conference organizers described this second DB/SA executives' conference as a success and said they hope to hold such meetings every two years. ▪