xxAACP Newsletter, Volume 17, Number 1, Winter 2003
Statements from the Candidates:
Office: APA President-Elect
Candidates:
Recently I wrote a candidacy statement for posting on our AACP listserve. And a few days ago Dr. Faison requested a 500-750 word statement on ‘any topic of interest’ for the Newsletter and our Website. In the press of time, I’ve decided primarily to edit aspects of what I wrote in the earlier listserve statement as well as to then append several additional thoughts. I’ve worked long and hard for the profession and within many areas of APA, as you know if you’ve read my earlier PsychNews statements (12/6 and 12/20). Moreover, as I noted on our AACP listserve, my most "germane" AACP work has tended to be, perhaps as it should be, "in the trenches" as it were.
For example, I:
•
worked for more than a decade in a half-time psychiatrist position within a small-sized, rurally situated but programmatically large Community Mental Health Center in Mono County, California;•
initiated psychiatry’s involvement with the Family Medicine program at UCLA;•
founded a community program (the Family Therapy Institute of Southern California) in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, which has provided, for hundreds of professionals in the community, across many disciplines, both theoretical information and also intensive, experiential, live supervised family-focused treatment;•
stimulated the processes (and helped achieve a needed 2/3 vote) to democratize representation in APA’s Assembly relative to DB size.; fought successfully to actually initiate minority representation within the Assembly; and (as Assembly Speaker) then promoted sub-specialty representation;•
sought and, to some extent, achieved (as APA Treasurer) increased openness about APA’s top staff salaries and arcane budgeting processes;…• consistently argued (on the APA Board as Area VI Trustee and then as Vice-President) that many aspects of APA’s overly cozy relationship and increasingly financially dependent relationship with the pharmaceutical industry poses a danger: to our integrity as professionals, to APA as an organization, and to our patients, both because of excessive costs of medication in this society and to the negative pressure it explicitly and implicitly imposes on providing truly comprehensive care.
These days I:
•
teach (as USC Clinical Professor) weekly at L.A. County General Hospital, interviewing families and supervising treatment provided by Fellows in Child Psychiatry;•
try to be sure that patients are seen and understood viewed within the realities of their social and familial contexts when I teach (as UCLA Clinical Professor) Psychiatric Residents regularly at the Sepulveda VA hospital;•
have a "private practice" of psychiatry (as a breadwinner) that implements context-based approaches: I work predominantly with couples and families even for nearly all "individual" problems that present.To the extent that my conceptual/organizational hat still is situated in public psychiatry, I have sought your vote as an AACP colleague. By virtue of my experience, I know an enormous amount about the inner workings of APA. Furthermore I have a very clear and sometimes rather feisty view that APA needs to be much more potent in protecting our patients and all who help treat them.
I have been carefully following many discussion threads on our listserve in recent months, with much interest and pleasure. It seems to me that the kind of interchange our members have provides a model for APA and moreover should help stimulate APA action. I believe I would be particularly sensitive to such issues and to pressing for apt action in that regard. Addressing the issues of adequate energy in prevention, increasing outreach/wrap-around services, psychiatrist shortages/credentialing and special C/A needs, work in/with primary care, and (what should be additional critical examination of) our profession’s role vis a vis the pharmaceutical industry, are part and parcel of the strong stances I have taken over the years and, within the word count constraints of PsychNews, mentioned as well in previously published candidacy statements therein. Once again, it seems straightforward to suggest that AACP members support my candidacy now by outreach to other colleagues, as well as when you cast your ballot for APA President-elect.
I look forward to seeing you in Charlottesville in a few weeks.
Fred Gottlieb, MD
As a long standing member of AACP, I am very honored to have been part of this wonderful organization for so many years. I have also very much appreciated the support of AACP in serving as APA Trustee at Large, Secretary and Senior Vice President. I am now running for APA President-Elect and would very much again appreciate your support and vote. I have served as Scientific Program Chair of the APA’s Institute on Psychiatric Services, and 5 years on the IPS SPC Program Committee. I am also on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Services and have served as a trustee of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry (AAEP). I am a consultation-liaison psychiatrist at the University of Michigan and serve as Associate Chair for Education and Academic Affairs as well as Director of the Psycho-Oncology Program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. My commitment to community psychiatrists and to ourpatients is strong. The recent issues that have been discussed on our list serve: generics versus trade meds; samples; not enough child psychiatrists and options for training changes; role of drug reps in clinical and academic sites; etc are all important to AACP and APA. I find the discussions on the AACP list serve the best -well informed, knowledgeable, and patient oriented... I will continue to be an active member of AACP, will listen to the concerns that are raised by our membership, and will do my best to help serve our patients. Thank you for your help and support.
Michelle Riba, MD
Back to Winter 2003 Table Of Contents