Candidates for Member-in-Training Trustee-Elect: Samir Sabbag, M.D.

I am honored to be nominated for member-in-training trustee-elect. In these changing times when our profession faces so many challenges, it is important to effectively communicate among us and be united to confront those hardships with one voice. As your representative, I will strive to inform you of the issues raised by the APA governance and share your input and opinions. This way, we can all participate in structuring the future of our profession. For the past year, I have been involved with the Florida Psychiatric Society, our APA district branch, and have seen the magnitude of the solidarity and support organized medicine offers to the field of psychiatry.

I feel strongly about our profession, having a contagious energy that can motivate others. Through my various leadership opportunities, I have used this enthusiasm to stimulate change and incite results. While serving as president of the Medical Student Scientific Committee in medical school, I worked hard to broaden the scope of activities carried out by our group and participated in restructuring our medical school's educational program. We organized nationally recognized meetings, blood donation campaigns, and community service programs, activities that were both innovative and successful. I later served as a leader among the student group in the Latin American Program of the University of Miami. During that service, I helped shape important administrative changes within the student body to maximize our learning experiences and to increase our exposure to different aspects of medicine. I have continued this level of commitment throughout my psychiatry residency training, participating in changes related to educational activities and curricular structure. Working with the University of Miami Department of Community Service has given me the opportunity to strengthen the availability of mental health services to the people of Miami by organizing mental health screening services at multiple student health fairs throughout the year. This has allowed me the experience of working with underserved communities among dedicated medical students and attendings. Motivating my fellow psychiatry residents and attendings to participate in these health fairs has helped to increase the impact of these community endeavors.

Through these experiences, I have come to realize the strength and importance of teamwork and how the intentions of the leader should always be selfless in nature. The leader serves the task of calling people together to work for a common objective, facilitating, showing respect for all opinions and views, and helping to shape and guide success. I approach every new project with a desire to improve the current conditions, and this represents a standard I have always lived by.

Through my work with underserved communities, a varied but equally affected population, I have seen large disparities within the current mental health system. In short, I feel the system is crying out for improvement and wholeheartedly believe that no matter what outcome health care reform takes, APA must be involved in order to provide input and to protect our patients' welfare as well as our own.

I will use the leadership experience I have built throughout the years, as well as the passion I have gained for the field of psychiatry to

Given the opportunity to serve as your member-in-training trustee-elect, I will strive to make our career one that is respected, one in which all of us will be proud to represent the field of psychiatry.