Don't Miss Opportunity to Hone Clinical Skills

This year's APA Institute on Psychiatric Services (IPS), which will be held October 14 to 17 in Boston, will offer a panoply of sessions large and small that will take an in-depth look at an area that has been much talked about of late—what psychiatric practice will look like in the next decades of the 21st century. The institute will also give meeting goers the opportunity to see why the New England region's autumn splendor is such a magnet for visitors from around the world every year.

A particular focus at the IPS—the smaller and more user friendly of APA's two major meetings, with all sessions held at one hotel—will be leadership in psychiatry, which has become “a lost art for many in our profession,” said IPS Scientific Program Committee Chair Anita Everett, M.D., “as services have disseminated into local community-based sites over the last 50 years, and as allied professsionals in social work and counseling have grown in terms of numbers and skills.”

To help remedy the decline of psychiatric leadership in the mental health arena, the IPS program will offer several sessions focused on the skills and knowledge required to prepare psychiatrists to be the leaders in clinical, research, and administrative roles in the mental health field.

Other sessions likely to be popular with attendees include ones spotlighting implementation of the new health care reform law and several on various aspects of delivering culturally sensitive psychiatric care.

Many psychiatrists have registered for the IPS in the past because it is an excellent opportunity for them to enhance their clinical skills, and the scientific program shows that this will certainly be the case again this year.

For example, the always popular course leading to buprenorphine certification will again be offered, as will other courses that have drawn enthusiastic crowds at recent institutes, such as those on administrative psychiatry and on cognitive-behavior therapy. There will also be in-depth “immersion” courses on treating tobacco dependence and treating homeless people who have mental illness. Another course will delve into the medico-legal issues that arise in emergency psychiatry settings.

This year's keynote speaker also promises to be a major draw for IPS attendees. Renowned author and clinician Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., will address the IPS's Opening Session on October 14. Jamison, an expert in bipolar illness research and treatment, is the author of several award-winning books, and one of those, 1995's An Unquiet Mind, was named a best book of the year by leading newspapers across the country. It has been translated into 25 languages and chronicles her personal experience with bipolar illness.

Redfield is the Dalio Family Professor in Mood Disorders at Johns Hopkins University and director of its Mood Disorder Center. In 1998 she received a Special Presidential Commendation from APA, in 2001 she received a Presidential Award from the Canadian Psychiatric Association, and last year she was named an honorary fellow by the American College of Psychiatrists.

In another interesting format in the IPS program, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has arranged for leading psychiatric researchers and clinicians to discuss SAMHSA's series of “tool kits,” which point providers and mental health service agencies toward proven, evidence-based practices in several facets of mental health care.

APA President Carol Bernstein, M.D., will also be holding another in her series of town hall meetings at this year's IPS. These meetings are designed to encourage residents and early career psychiatrists to engage in a dialogue with her about their vision for APA.

Commenting to Psychiatric News about her goal in holding these town-hall meetings, Bernstein said that “with the exponential rate of change in new advances in our field, as well as the evolving landscape in medical practice in general, it is more important than ever that the APA leadership be well connected to the next generation of psychiatrists. Mentorship is definitely bi-directional.”

Psychiatry residents can register for the meeting at a reduced rate, and medical students can register for free.

IPS registration information and hotel reservation forms are posted at <www.psych.org/ips>.