The subcommittee is focusing on ways to improve the networking experience for the Academy‘s early career members and creating a platform for informal communication with senior members of the Academy.

In lieu of this, the subcommittee organized an AMA (Ask Me Anything) event in 2021 which allowed an informal set-up between ECPs and senior members in small subgroups. We plan to expand on this initiative in the coming year by utilizing feedback from ECPs about topics of interest, ways to increase engagement, and participation.

The subcommittee discussed creating a workshop related to challenges faced by ECPs during the pandemic, adapting to changes in the work environment, promoting well-being and resilience, and looking at ways to re-emerge from the pandemic. We are aiming to improve networking opportunities outside of the annual meeting through social media platforms.

There are ongoing efforts to improve collaboration between the subcommittee and the Early Career Psychiatrists SIG to support their representation and work in the Academy; use the SIG to connect members to common interests; and increase participation of ECPs in other SIGs and the Academy subcommittees.

We are also working on setting up webinars for ECPs, including negotiating a contract, academic advancement, and topics pertinent to career-related changes. If any reader has a webinar that you have presented, or are able to present, please reach out to dr.inder@gmail.com

As a subcommittee, we meet monthly and will continue to build on creative opportunities for ECPs through the Academy.

The subcommittee is thrilled to be planning for an in-person annual meeting this November in Atlanta, Georgia!  The two-year hiatus from in-person meetings has underscored our deep need for connection and gathering with our colleagues and friends. We will keep the significance of this reunion in mind as we consider how to safely reconvene our committees and SIGs and provide opportunities for member networking and socializing. We look forward to seeing you in the Peach State!

The subcommittee is thrilled to be complementing this year’s meeting theme: Making Connections: Inspiring Transformation Through Education.

This year we will be holding an Essentials course. This four-hour course consists of multiple speakers reviewing core topics in C-L Psychiatry, reviewed by experts in our field in these content areas. It is a great way to review topics across multiple content areas within C-L Psychiatry.

Our Skills courses provide an opportunity to develop skills that may support career development across the domains of clinical work, administration, research, and education. We are excited to have more flexibility with live sessions this year and to bring back the interactive nature of these courses. For registered members, up to two hours of pre-recorded didactic content will be available for viewing before the course. On the Wednesday of the meeting, members will participate in an afternoon of interactive content with experts in each skill area. We are encouraging submissions from the Academy for these courses. This is a great way to develop the skills to be effective in our multiple roles as C-L psychiatrists. 

We will also be bringing back the Fundamentals course. This course focuses on essential topics within C-L Psychiatry. It covers the basic topics that are often taught during fellowship training. The content is geared toward trainees, clinicians new to our field, and anyone looking to revisit the field’s primary topics.

As our committee prepares for the annual meeting, we encourage any suggestions from members regarding content and speakers. We look forward to seeing you at the meeting this year!

The committee coordinates the activity of the six ACLP Education subcommittees. The committee continues to coordinate the ACLP COVID-19 webpages. We particularly note resources for health care provider wellness. We would like to ask for a new series of Reports from the Field with regard to how your center is managing the current crisis: please do send us your reports about how your center is returning, or not returning, to business as usual. We have resumed the monthly webinars which were interrupted by the COVID-19 crisis. We will be alternating between cutting-edge updates in the field and clinical case conferences (see also the report of the Residency Education Subcommittee below).

In the initial months of 2022, the subcommittee will continue to draw from lessons learned in post-graduate education during the COVID-19 pandemic in order investigate new opportunities and offer best practices in fellowship training. Given the evolving pandemic and questions about the interview season later this year, including questions around whether to consider in-person options, we will be revising last year’s interview guidelines to incorporate new pandemic knowledge, insights from other specialties, and input from aligned organizations in medical education.

Furthermore, given that the past two years have underscored issues of wellness among trainees and colleagues for C-L psychiatrists, we have formed a workgroup to assess best practices in wellness within hospital settings, in order to consider recommendations for C-L fellowship training pertaining to developing and supporting wellness systems for non-psychiatric colleagues during periods of systemic duress.

Finally, the subcommittee will continue its focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, including distributing and analyzing the results of fellows’ experiences of DEI in training.

The subcommittee will be distributing a brief, online survey examining the structure and the educational needs of an interdisciplinary C-L Psychiatry team. Chiefs and vice-chairs of their respective C-L Psychiatry services will be asked to complete the survey. This will direct the subcommittee’s subsequent work on developing appropriate educational content. Additionally, in light of the recent recognition of the magnitude of social determinants and their impact on mental health, we have joined with the other education subcommittees, in liaison with Membership’s DEI subcommittee, to create a diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum for C-L psychiatrists, trainees, and interdisciplinary team members. The objective is to generate a clinical guide for the interdisciplinary team which reviews the concepts of cultural competency and helps to recognize and address mistreatment of patients and their medical team.

The subcommittee plans to review and update the MOC process with the goals of distilling it into a format that is easier to track. In addition, the group will again work to prepare the self-assessment exam in anticipation of CLP 2022.

We recently developed a clinical module that aims to satisfy the improvement in medical practice requirement (Part IV, PIP) as part of the continuing certification process. The module asks you to evaluate your notes on substance-using patients and consider your assessment and treatment planning. The module will allow you to fulfill your PIP requirement in an efficient and meaningful way. This is posted on the ACLP website here. If you need clinical PIP, try this free option from the ACLP.

There is a process currently underway by the American Board of Medical Specialties that seeks to revise what continuing certification means and how it is developed across specialties, so that it is seen as providing value, being relevant, and avoiding duplicated efforts. The subcommittee contributed to the comments to be provided by the ACLP in this process. Once these changes are ultimately defined for Psychiatry, our subcommittee will work on developing a system to clarify, organize, and track requirements. 

The subcommittee is dedicated to promoting early awareness, fostering interest, and broadening the path for recruitment of medical students into future careers in C-L Psychiatry. Our team of experienced medical educators focuses on engaging and teaching student learners about the breadth and value of our subspecialty through contact with local and national student interest groups, serving as mentors, encouraging student participation in ACLP activities, and developing educational materials that promote the understanding and application of our growing subspecialty knowledge base among beginning learners. This year, we added two medical student members to our committee, and seek additional engagement and dialogue with students through virtual platforms and expansion of our online presence on the ACLP website. We are also excited to continue our collaboration with our Education subcommittee partners and promotion of student involvement in the Academy’s live and virtual educational events. As a reminder, medical students can apply for ACLP membership for free—thank you in advance for helping us to spread the word!

The subcommittee aims to improve ACLP member access to online educational resources and tools available through the ACLP website. During 2022, the subcommittee will be curating and identifying high-yield online content from the 2021 ACLP annual conference for ACLP members. We will also be launching a series of ACLP podcasts to further disseminate ACLP content, such as highlights from our annotated bibliographies and other C-L Psychiatry clinical updates. We will continue to update the ACLP website to further improve user experience and site navigation, and will continue to work with other Education subcommittees to introduce online new content. Lastly, we hope to survey ACLP members to determine members’ online education needs.

The subcommittee focuses on promoting educational scholarship, developing educational materials, recruiting trainees to C-L Psychiatry, and addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in C-L Psychiatry training. We surveyed all ACGME-accredited Psychiatry programs to understand the training experience of residents and shared results at CLP 2021. Results of the survey will be used to develop recommendations for training residents in C-L Psychiatry. In Fall 2021, we kicked off virtual case conferences in an effort to recruit trainees to C-L Psychiatry and to augment C-L Psychiatry education at training sites. Case conferences occur every other month and are part of a monthly webinar series to provide online educational content and engage ACLP membership. We source cases through SIGs, the Journal of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (JACLP), and ACLP members. Interested parties can send a brief summary of their case to dfipps@123@gmail.com and we will review cases for selection.

We continue to add to our How To guide series on common consultation questions encountered by residents on a C-L Psychiatry service and have recently added guides on perinatal mental health and psychopharmacology in bariatric surgery. Guides on demoralization, use of clozapine on a C-L Psychiatry service, suicide risk assessment, and behavior plans are upcoming.

We will liaise with the mentorship subcommittee to help transition the mentorship program for residents to the mentorship subcommittee. We continue our collaboration with other Education subcommittees to create a shared DEI curriculum for C-L Psychiatry educators.

This is a large cohort, comprising close to 50 hard-working and dedicated ACLP members. Our two newest subcommittees, DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion), chaired by Leena Mittal, MD, FACLP, and Mentorship, chaired by Carrie Ernst, MD, have hit the ground running.

These subcommittees will be submitting proposals for CLP 2022 that are very likely to include colleagues from outside the group, as both subcommittees’ ethea stress inclusion and collaboration.

The entire group has been tasked with coming up with ideas to help us recruit and retain ACLP members, especially during economically challenging times, when funding for membership may be decreased or completely eliminated by a member’s or potential member’s institution.

The committee is looking forward to 2022 and the annual meeting! We are undertaking several activities for 2022.

First, the committee and Research Subcommittee have begun work on a research-focused web page for the ACLP website. This will initially launch with information related to funding opportunities for C-L Psychiatry research, but over time it will expand to include other resources for ACLP members, from clinicians interested in getting more involved in research to established investigators.

Furthermore, the Guidelines and Evidence-Based Medicine Subcommittee has continued to post annotated abstracts of relevant research articles within C-L Psychiatry, including over 100 annotated abstracts in the past year!

We are working to further standardize criteria for the research-related awards that are presented at the annual meeting. We hope this will increase consistency and consensus in our recognition of the outstanding research conducted by a wide range of researchers in our field.

Finally, we will continue to work to find exceptional researchers in the field of C-L Psychiatry and increase their engagement with the Academy moving forward!

The subcommittee has multiple exciting initiatives to support Academy members and our patients. Our quarterly annotated abstracts Annotations have never been more popular among Academy members. These article reviews help Academy members and the public remain current with the latest C-L Psychiatry literature. We are excited that new topics will introduce readers to both new topic areas and also provide unique perspectives on core C-L Psychiatry topics. We encourage members to check out the new Hispano-American Psychiatry, Climate Change, and Novel Therapeutics topic areas alongside longstanding favorites such as HIV, delirium, and emergency psychiatry.

The subcommittee encourages reviewers to reflect the considerations of ACLP’s DEI goals in their scientific critiques. Also in 2022, we will support the Academy’s development of clinical guidelines on the management of depression among patients with cancer. We continue to grow in our mission of advancing the evidence-based practice of C-L Psychiatry.

The task force looks forward to presenting the results of the two surveys that explored quality and productivity benchmarks in C-L Psychiatry.

The first project of the task force was the survey of ACLP’s membership. That instrument studied member-level data and explored individual experiences with productivity and quality benchmarks in C-L Psychiatry.

The second survey relied on the almost 30 academic and community departments of Psychiatry that volunteered to provide observed and expected performance on various productive and quality metrics utilized by their respective inpatient and outpatient C-L Psychiatry practices.

Through these surveys, the ACLP aims to provide our membership with useful, actionable information that will aid in thoughtful and informed conversations with department, hospital, and practice leadership to help develop and maintain clinical C-L Psychiatry programs.

I would also like to thank the ACLP leadership and membership for their patience as we endeavor to review the data thoughtfully to ensure the results are valid and meaningful to our membership. Please do not hesitate to contact Tom Heinrich at theinric@mcw.edu with questions about this project.