Candidate for Secretary

Speaker, APA Assembly, 2001-02

Chair, APA Joint Commission on Public Affairs, 1995-99

Chair, Assembly Committee of Representatives of Minority/Underrepresented Groups, 1993-94

Professor of Psychiatry and Obstetrics/Gynecology, Rush Medical College, 1996-

Chief Medical Officer, Illinois Department of Mental Health, 1993-96

Director of C/L Service and Residency Training, University of Chicago, 1987-93

Advocacy: The public needs to know what a psychiatrist is and does. During my four years as chair of the Joint Commission on Public Affairs, we put issue kits in the hands of APA members: on parity, scope of practice, and state mental health funding. The quantity and quality of coverage of psychiatric issues in the media improved significantly. I edited our “Let’s Talk Facts About Mental Illnesses” brochures. I taught our members how to use the media and provided daily bulletins for handling the news. I appeared on the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Larry King Live,” CNN, and NPR and in the New York Times, Time, and the Wall Street Journal, explaining and defending our profession. An informed public will demand that our leaders institute and protect equitable insurance coverage, confidentiality, prescriptions written by medical doctors, and care managed on the basis of need and science, not profit. An informed public will turn to APA for information and to APA members for treatment.

Fiscal Responsibility: I have just finished my term as speaker of the APA Assembly. During my three years as an Assembly officer, the Assembly insisted on the formation of a Financial Oversight Committee—and reduced its own expenses. As a direct result, the APA Board is now making real-time course corrections and living within our means.

Lifelong Education: I founded the first Residents’ Committee in APA and served as director of psychiatric education at the University of Chicago. In APA, I have successfully advocated for the development of Board review and recertification resources and a handbook for residents.

Broad-Based Practice: I have headed a consultation/liaison service, a psychiatry residency, the medical office of a state mental health system, and the department of psychiatry in a general hospital, all while maintaining a clinical practice. I have degrees in both public health and psychoanalysis.

Collaboration With Fellow Physicians and Advocacy Groups: I am a C/L psychiatrist working daily with primary care physicians. I founded Illinois’ first mental health coalition, and I am a member of the Board of the National Mental Health Association.

Cutting-Edge Information: I have served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Psychiatry and Psychiatric News. I originated the journal Medical Update for Psychiatrists. I’ve published seven books and 70-plus articles. I am the treasurer of the Board of the largest psychiatric press in the world: APA’s American Psychiatric Publishing Inc.

Appreciation of Our Diversity: We are diverse in gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and site of medical education. I have chaired APA’s Committee on Women, been elected chair of the Women’s Caucus, and chair of all the minority group representatives. As speaker, I increased the representation of minority psychiatrists on APA components and founded the APA Roundtable with leaders of psychiatric minority organizations. I have mentored many, and represented all, of our members.

Balance Between Our Professional and Personal Lives: My husband and I have four daughters. I have stayed home with them, worked part time, and worked full time. Now that they are adults, my daughters insist I devote my energy to APA.