Two of psychiatry's most prominent names have been chosen to compete in the race to be the next president-elect of APA. The Nominating Committee announced last month that Donna Norris, M.D., of Wellesley, Mass., and Alan Schatzberg, M.D., of Stanford, Calif., will face off in that contest.
Norris is secretary-treasurer of APA, chair of the Ethics Appeals Board, and a past speaker of the APA Assembly. Schatzberg, president of American Psychiatric Publishing Inc. and chair of its Board of Directors, is chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.
The contest to succeed Norris as secretary-treasurer pits David Fassler, M.D., of Burlington, Vt., against Burton Reifler, M.D., of Winston-Salem, N.C. Fassler is an at-large member of the Board of Trustees; Reifler is a member of the APA Ethics Committee.
Three candidates will vie for the upcoming vacancy in one of the three at-large positions on the Board of Trustees—Dilip Jeste, M.D., of San Diego, a member of the DSM-V Task Force; Francis Lu, M.D., of San Francisco, a corresponding member of the Council on Minority Mental Health and Health Disparities; and Ann Marie Sullivan, M.D., of New York, who is currently the Area 2 trustee.
The race for member-in-training trustee-elect will also be a three-way race. The nominees are Melinda Fierros, M.D., a resident at Wright State University; Christian Neal, M.D., a resident at Palmetto Health/University of South Carolina; and Scott Shaffer, M.D., a resident at Brown University.
In addition to the elections for the national positions on the Board, two of APA's seven Areas will hold trustee elections in 2008.
Area 2, which includes all the district branches in New York state, will also be a three-candidate contest, with Richard Altesman, M.D., James Nininger, M.D., and Seeth Vivek, M.D., competing for the position.
In Area 5, which encompases all of the Southern states from Virginia to Texas, as well as Puerto Rico and the district branch for psychiatrists in the military, the current representative, Mary Helen Davis, M.D., of Louisville, Ky., is facing Harold Ginzburg, M.D, of Metairie, La.
Paper ballots will be mailed out on December 22, the same day on which members for whom APA has an e-mail address will receive, via e-mail, instructions for voting online. Members who would like to receive an online ballot only, an option that can be selected in the Members' Corner of the APA Web site, will receive an e-mail with a ballot-control number and online voting instructions. The address for indicating this choice is<
http://onlineapa.psych.org/OnlineBallot.aspx>. The deadline for receipt of both paper and online ballots is 5 p.m. Eastern time on February 5, 2008. (See
APA's Election Guidelines Emphasize Dignity, Courtesy, and Fairness. The guidelines prescribe members' election-related activities.)
Candidates' biographies and election statements will appear in the December 7 issue of Psychiatric News. ▪
