Members Turn Ideas To Action: Washington, D.C. Fall Component Meetings September 11-14, 2003

Approximately 300 APA members arrived in Washington, D.C., last month to participate in the Association’s annual fall component meetings and to work on issues of importance to APA and the field of psychiatry and its patients. About 60 components tackled issues in such areas as child and adolescent, addiction, forensic, and international psychiatry; health care systems and financing; the practice of psychiatry; patient safety; research; advocacy and public policy; and medical education.

A highlight of the fall component meetings was the plenary session held on Saturday, September 13 (see facing page). APA President Marcia Goin, M.D., invited Tom Hamilton, Ph.D., past president of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) Texas, to talk about how he had used 30 years of experience in the business world to the fight against the criminalization of people with mental illness in Texas.

APA President Marcia Goin, M.D., commented at the conclusion of the weekend, “Everyone worked hard, and members’ dedication to the profession and their patients was palpable. You could see it reflected in their attention and response to Tom Hamilton, NAMI’s liaison to APA’s Corresponding Committee on Jails and Prisons, when during the plenary session Tom spelled out a problem in access and described a successful advocacy response. These meetings are integral to APA’s mission of improving the lives of mentally ill Americans and working toward the goal of ensuring they have access to the mental health care they need. Without the commitment of the many members who serve on APA components—on the national and local levels—APA would not be able to address so many important issues to the breadth and depth we are now able to do.”