Norris, Oldham Vie to Become President-Elect

The Nominating Committee has chosen two psychiatrists who have made extensive contributions to the field to vie in next year's election for the post of APA president-elect, in which Wellesley, Mass., psychiatrist Donna Norris, M.D., will face off against John Oldham, M.D., of Houston in the 2010 election.

Norris, a private practitioner of child, adolescent, and forensic psychiatry, is on the Harvard volunteer faculty and is chair of the Ethics Committee of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society. Previously she was APA secretary-treasurer, Area 1 trustee, and speaker of the Assembly.

Oldham is senior vice president and chief of staff at the Menninger Clinic and a professor of psychiatry at Baylor. He is on the APA Council on Research and Quality Care, editor of the Journal of Psychiatric Practice, and president-elect of the American College of Psychiatrists.

In next year's election the position of secretary-treasurer will be split into two positions. Competing to be secretary are Fred Gottlieb, M.D., of Los Angeles, and Roger Peele, M.D., of Rockville, Md. Gottlieb is a former speaker of the Assembly and APA treasurer. Peele, also a former Assembly speaker, is an at-large trustee on the Board of Trustees.

Burlington, Vt., psychiatrist David Fassler, M.D., currently secretary-treasurer of APA, is running for the treasurer post, and will compete against Paul Summergrad, M.D., of Boston, a member of the Steering Committee on Practice Guidelines.

In addition, two of APA's seven Areas will hold elections for their trustee in 2010. In Area 3, which consists of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, Brian Crowley, M.D., of Washington, D.C., will run against the incumbent, John Urbaitis, M.D., of Baltimore.

In Area 6, which is made up of the five district branches in California, Barton Blinder, M.D., of Newport Beach will compete against Marc Graff, M.D., of Reseda.

(The nominees for the Board's Area trustee positions are selected by their Area councils rather than by the APA Nominating Committee.)

Also to be elected is the member-in-training trustee-elect (MITTE). The candidates for this post are Sarah Johnson, M.D., a PGY-3 resident at the University of Louisville, and Samir Sabbag, M.D., a PGY-3 resident at Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami. The MITTE position has been a nonvoting one since its inception, but beginning next May it will be converted to a voting position. That means that when the next Board is seated, at the close of the 2010 APA annual meeting, members-in-training will have two voting members on the Board of Trustees.

At its March meeting the Board voted to make several changes to its composition (Psychiatric News, April 17) that are reflected in the positions that are up for election next year. The Trustees eliminated the vice-president post and two of the three at-large positions. The remaining at-large position is the one for an early career psychiatrist and will be up for election in 2012 when incumbent Joyce Spurgeon, M.D., completes her three-year term. The Trustees holding the other two at-large positions will complete their terms, one ending in 2010 and the other in 2011. The current vice president, Jeffrey Geller, M.D., will complete his term, which ends in 2011.

Paper and electronic ballots will be sent to APA members on December 22 along with candidate information and voting instructions. Members who would like to receive only an electronic ballot should make the appropriate selection at<www.psych.org/options>. The deadline for receipt of all ballots is 5 p.m. Eastern time on February 5, 2010.

More information on the election and nominations process is posted at<www.psych.org/resources/governance/elections.aspx>.▪