Candidates for President-Elect: Donna M. Norris, M.D.

I am honored to be a candidate for APA president-elect. As APA president, I will bring to this office over 30 years of steadily increasing APA leadership and responsibility. My APA career began as a Falk Fellow. That initial experience set me on a lifelong journey of mentorship of medical students, members-in-training, and early career psychiatrists, all of whom embody so much of our vitality and hope for the future.

An effective president needs to know how APA works. I have represented our profession in clinical and academic settings, as well as before judicial, legislative, and regulatory bodies, served on the APA Board of Trustees, as Assembly speaker, as Area 1 trustee, and now as APA secretary-treasurer. In these capacities and in full time private practice of child, adult, and forensic psychiatry, I have been your advocate and an advocate for our patients—children, elderly, chronic and persistently mentally ill, minorities, and the underserved. As APA treasurer, I work to maintain transparency regarding funding sources and a balanced budget. As APA secretary, I chair the Task Force on Interests and Disclosures of Conflicts for DSM-V to ensure strict disclosures of potential conflicts and to maintain the integrity of our work.

This APA election is about strong advocacy for our patients and for those who are uninsured or underinsured and have limited access to needed nondiscriminatory psychiatric services. Our patients deserve the same mental health benefits as they would receive for any other medical care. This election is about ensuring that there are sufficient inpatient beds across the country to meet our patients' needs. This election is about preventing the continuous assaults on our patients' privacy and rights to confidentiality. This election is about providing adequate support systems so that patients receive the treatment they require and are not compromised by severely restricted state formularies and the uncertain funding of Medicare and Medicaid. This APA election is about a sustained fight against stigmatizing our patients and our profession and about strong advocacy to address member concerns regarding outside influences on medical practices such as pay for performance and quality of care definitions. This APA election is about constant vigilance to guard against attempts to severely restrict funding for medical research and medical education. This APA election is about what we individually and APA can do to meet these challenges. Additional legislative priorities include (1) inclusion under Medicare Part D of medications which our patients need, (2) scope of practice appropriate to training, (3) increased funding for child psychiatry, for children's mental health parity (SCHIP), and for the critical workforce shortages in child psychiatry, and (4) improved access to mental health services for the military and their families.

Our nation stands ready to reform our current health care system. We understand best our patients' needs for integrated quality mental health services and need to be a creative part of this process. Included in any health care reform plan must be:

My three decades of APA leadership and advocacy experience uniquely qualify me to collaboratively tackle the challenges facing our patients and our profession. I ask for your help and your vote.