xxAACP Newsletter, Volume 16, Number 4, Fall 2002

Home

Mission

Board

Join

Newsletter

Archive

Products

Four members recently retired from their AACP Board positions. These heroes include: Benjamin Crocker, MD, David Giles, MD, Robert Goisman, MD, and Barbara Rohland, MD. Sincerest thanks to all four members for their years of service and commitment to AACP. We would like to acknowledge each of them and their many contributions to the organization and to the field. We look forward to their continued participation and expertise. As they leave the Board they have each shared some of their memories with the AACP membership.

Dr. Crocker has been an AACP member for 14 years. "In 1992 I was convinced to run for the Board as an area representative. I think there were only 12 members at that time from California, and I won unopposed, 5-0". He spent two terms as Area VII Representative and during that period increased membership in his region to more than 40 members. At the end of that period he moved to Maine, represented California from Maine for a year, and was then nominated for Secretary, a post he held for six years.

He reminisced about his time on the Board, " Since I had to pay attention to what the other people were saying (as secretary), I didn’t get to say much over the years. However, I did participate in discussions regarding commercial sources of money and spent a lot of time at the recruitment booth . . . There were many memorable moments during board deliberations, but my favorite was a discussion the board had about etiquette and some gender-related difficulty in waiting for one’s turn to speak. I think this may have included some gavel-banging."

"I am currently very interested in the growing concern that academic and organized medicine have become too dependent on commercial support, and that physicians in general are too much influenced by various forms of advertising, and in some instances, payola. The AACP has always discussed these issues openly and made efforts to be as independent as possible from commercial gifts in the core operation of the organization. I hope that in the future, the AACP can exercise leadership amongst national psychiatric associations around this issue,"

As he leaves the Board, Dr. Crocker reflected on the personal importance of the AACP. "The AACP has played a major role in keeping my self esteem as a community psychiatrist afloat. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to have served on the Board. Since I am just an ordinary rank-and-file community psychiatrist who has generally shunned academia or administration, I am living proof that any member can rise in the organization. Especially after I moved to a small and somewhat remote part of the country, having the fellowship of the outstanding and personable national psychiatric leaders of the AACP Board has been extremely satisfying, especially as the organization has embraced the web as a way of keeping in touch."

Other Board members will miss Ben for his "wry comments on the absurdities of our systems and his unrelenting efforts to hold us to a higher standard when it comes to dealing with industry". Anita Everett stated that he "has been instrumental in shaping my ideal as to what a community psychiatrist represents. His recounting of his experience as a temporary doc at an inner-city program for the homeless at an AACP meeting in Ohio in 2000 was magical ." Andres Pumariega commented, "Ben in many ways represents and constitutes the heart and soul of AACP-- giving, selfless, devoted, and unconditional. I learned much from him through his warm but quiet ways of giving support and encouragement when the chips were down. . .This is complimented by Gladys also doing the same in her warm, effusive Latina manner, which is wonderfully complimentary. Our organization, our communities (especially LA and Maine), and our world are much richer for who they are, what they do, and how they care. Also, Ben makes a mean tie!" . .

Dr. Giles has been an AACP member for approximately 12 years. He has spent the last eight years (two four-year terms) as Area IV Representative. One of his important contributions during his term he was chairing the task force on Seclusion and Restraint and developing the foundation of the AACP position paper on this topic.

Reflecting on his years on the Board he commented, "The most enjoyable time on the AACP Board for me has been the personal relationship with Board members. I think the people on the board are hard working, outspoken, and dynamically represent different viewpoints. Yet, it is such a supportive group that enjoys each other. Some of the most fun has been those discussions over food (and drink) after the formal meeting. I feel I have learned so much and have been able to bring back information to the hospital to help me and our mental health center in our work".

"I think AACP is able to represent community psychiatry and our patients from a unique perspective. I feel honored to have been a part of the Board for the past eight years. I will keep in touch and support AACP. . . Wait. . . most memorable time at an event related to an AACP meeting was going to the Mother-in-Law Lounge in New Orleans. Amazing. Hmnnnnnn. . . . ."

Dr. Giles will be remembered on the Board for his quiet good-nature, and for his ability to help keep others on track, as Charley Huffine described him, "a kind ‘sargent at arms’ enforcing the time constraints of our agenda schedule. He contributed so much practical good sense to our Board discussions". One Board member commented "David is a compassionate soul, a peace-keeper. I consider him a dear colleague."

Dr. Goisman has been an AACP member for approximately 16 years. He served on the Board for the past eight years in several capacities—as Area I Representative, Training Committee co-chair, and most recently as Treasurer.

Some of his projects and memberships while on the board have included: co-Development of the Training Network and web-based Curriculum Files; setting up a certificate of deposit account for our "excess" cash; participation in the Psychosocial Rehabilitation Project; liaison with AADPRT and ADMSEP; membership on the APA Commission on Psychotherapy by Psychiatrists; and presentations on Medical Student Education in Day Hospitals and on Multidisciplinary Training.

Regarding his most memorable moment on the Board, Dr. Goisman responded "Hard to say—Many were wonderful. Going out with Board members to Tiajuana, Mexico was a blast. Listening to Clif Tennison cut right to the heart of an issue was always an inspiration. The AACP Winter Meeting final banquet at the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum was maybe the single most powerful experience I had as an AACP Board Member."

"Of all the organizations representing various interest groups and factions which exist in psychiatry, in my view, the AACP, has remained most true to the ideals and values which helped form us. The fact that we vigorously disagree amongst ourselves from time to time, while occasionally feeling a bit rough, is a tremendous sign of strength and a marker of how seriously we take our charge as an organization. Given the mean-spiritedness that now seems to characterize society as a whole, we are needed more than ever. We are brothers and sisters in the same struggle, and eventually we will prevail. My love goes to all of you."

Dr. Goisman will be remembered on the Board for his skills, his diplomacy, his warmth and his humanity. As Dr. Huffine said, "Bob as treasurer was a perfect balance between a scrupulous keeper of the books and an idealistic force for innovation. Never was there a person of higher principles, kindness and warmth than Bob Goisman." Anita Everett described his "enthusiasm for the intellectual/academic pursuit of the humanity of community psychiatry" as "an absolute inspiration." Hunter McQuistion summarized other Board members comments, expressing his appreciation for Dr. Goisman’s "very unique sense of the positive: as a Board member, he was consistently constructive and pro-active in terms of the organization’s vision. I will truly miss his supportiveness, good humor, and heart".

"I became a member of the American Association of Community Psychiatry in 1993. I think that I first learned of the organization at an AACP reception in San Diego. Some of the first AACP people that I remember meeting and talking to were Jackie Feldman and Ben Crocker. . . I don’t remember them specifically recruiting me to join AACP, but just getting to know them made me feel that I was in the ‘right crowd’ of people and I joined AACP shortly after that. At that time I was just finishing my residency and fellowship program at the University of Iowa. I had been moonlighting at a local mental health center and became interested in the role of psychiatrists in mental health centers. Work in this area had been published by Gordon Clark (when ‘Psychiatric Services’ was called ‘Hospital and Community Psychiatry’) and it was great to have a chance to meet and talk with him at one of the early meetings."

"Having come from a rural area, I was particularly interested in quality and access to care by persons in rural areas, particularly those with serious mental illness who needed care the most, but seemed to get it the least. This concern resonated with the mission of the AACP and I found people who shared my ideas, but even more importantly, helped me to better articulate the problems and think about ways to improve them. My initial agenda was "a psychiatrist in every county" in the state of Iowa. I realize now that some of my early ideas were naive, but I also think that naivete is an important part of enthusiasm and passion, as long as it’s mixed with healthy doses of pragmatism, patience and humor. I was delighted when I was asked to run as a board candidate and was elected to the position. The first meeting that I attended was in Toronto and I remember the interesting combination of chaos, excitement and general good will."

"The board meetings and related social activities with the board members are my fondest memories. I think that my favorite meeting was the one at Skamania Lodge. Two of my sisters live in Oregon and at the end of the meeting they and their partners came to pick me up for the grand tour of the falls and let me treat them to Sunday brunch at the Lodge. The memories for me are bittersweet; my brother-in-law died a few months later of a sudden heart attack, and one of my sisters now has metastatic cancer. But on that day we all ate, drank and were merry. My family got a glimpse of what I did for a living, and met some of the people that I had come to think of as my ‘other’ family."

"I have never worked with a group that had so much heart and soul as do the AACP board members. I will remember them for their humor, kindness, creativity, and enthusiam . I will miss them dearly. And who knows, maybe someday I will fly on airplanes again, shake the surly bonds of department chairdom and will revisit board membership (and members) once again."

Dr. Rohland is described by other Board members as "quiet and compassionate, but very strong, with well-informed and thoughtful contributions. . . a role model, especially for women psychiatrists." Dr. Huffine decribes her as "a powerful voice for rational clinical services" stating that she "was enormously helpful in her committee work on several important projects." Dr. Everett also voiced her appreciation for Dr. Rohland’s contributions stating, "She is an exemplary compassionate psychiatrist and for me has been a wonderful source of inspiration, mentoring and basic survival skills in navigating organizational issues within public psychiatry."

Back to Fall 2002 Table Of Contents