D.C. Mentor Program Celebrates

The District of Columbia Psychiatric Society, a chapter of the Washington Psychiatric Society, last month celebrated the fourth anniversary of its innovative Career, Leadership, and Mentorship (CLM) project.

Presenters at the December celebration were Elspeth Ritchie, M.D., chief clinical officer for the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health, and Yavar Moghimi, M.D., a PGY-4 psychiatry resident at George Washington University. Ritchie discussed posttraumatic stress disorder and suicide in the U.S. military, and Moghimi screened his film “Released to Life,” which deals with the lives of African-American men who had been released from the D.C. Jail.

The CLM project, which is co-chaired by Eliot Sorel, M.D., and Hind Benjelloun, M.D., is aimed at early career psychiatrists and at residents in training programs in the Washington, D.C., area, including those at George Washington, Georgetown, and Howard universities as well as residents at St. Elizabeths Hospital, the National Institutes of Health, and military programs. The project's goal is to mentor residents by presenting role models and providing career and leadership opportunities in an array of professional areas including clinical practice, education, advocacy, and research. Several of the residents and early career psychiatrists participating in the program have run for elective office and are serving in leadership positions in the APA and in their district branch.

The CLM program has been adopted by the New Jersey district branch and will soon be implemented in the Maryland district branch, Sorel noted.