IN THIS ISSUE: President’s Message | Stoudemire Award | Visiting Professors | Posters | What’s on the Web | A&E Abstracts
From Madeleine Becker, MD, FACLP, ABOIM
We are tumbling through an eventful year. Most notably, we have a new executive director, Christy Levine, who replaced James Vrac. James retired in June of this year. We miss James very much but I am delighted to report that Christy has hit the ground running, an enormous task for this mid-year transition.
Over the past year, the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) Subcommittee has been working with the Board to develop a DEIA membership survey, which will be opened to membership soon. With our tremendous growth over the past years, we want to ensure that we are best meeting our diverse membership needs. Please complete the survey when it is sent to you. Your responses are valuable and will guide us as we go forward.
The Academy is underway in developing new educational programs to offer members subspecialty expertise in areas that they want to learn more about. We continue to offer monthly webinars and journal clubs that are very well attended, and we continue to increase these options. Our mentorship program has been expanded for different levels of career stage. You may have noticed that our ACLP website has been reorganized. Accessing our many educational offerings should be easier. We are also growing and adding to our ACLP YouTube channel. We have also started an Instagram feed which we hope will particularly help us reach trainees. Stay tuned for projects underway.
As you probably have heard by now, the ACLP has a seat in the American Medical Association’s (AMA) House of Delegates (HOD), approved in June of 2024. This milestone was an important one for the Academy as we now have a stronger voice for both recognition for our subspecialty and also for advocacy in AMA. We have a seat along with our colleagues in the other psychiatric subspecialties in the HOD. I have been impressed with our member response in joining the AMA, which was a requisite to this honor. Please use your valuable membership benefits (JAMA publications, resources, meetings and educational opportunities) and renew this year! My sincere thank you to all who are AMA members or who joined to help make this happen.
Our APA colleagues, Kristin Kroger, and Rebecca Brendel MD, JD, FACLP, and our AMA Representative, Lee Tynes, MD, PhD, FACLP, have been strong advocates for the Academy and my thanks to them for their support and guidance in securing the AMA seat. As many of you know, Marketa Wills, MD, MBA, was recently appointed as CEO and medical director of the American Psychiatric Association. I am delighted that Dr. Wills, along with APA president, Ramaswamy Viswanathan, MD, will join as our guests to welcome you to our Annual Meeting on the Thursday.
Finally, the Annual Program Committee has done an amazing job with organizing this year’s Annual Meeting under the leadership of Amy Bauer, MD, FACLP, program chair, and Anne Gross, MD, FACLP, assistant program chair. Together, they have developed what I know will be a fantastic and innovative meeting, covering integrative and whole health approaches to patient care. Please take a look at the general sessions here.
I am also very pleased to continue to develop and extend our meeting programming from Wednesday, with diverse new offerings for all of our members. We have several new FREE skills sessions including a course on Advocacy Skills for Psychiatrists and a Reflective Writing Course. These along with the Research Colloquium and Updates in CLP Course will provide new options for all our members. We also have terrific on-theme afternoon preconference Skills courses, including a course on Vitamins, and Minerals and Supplements in Psychiatry: Practical applications, current evidence and safety; Coaching the Leader Within; and Hypnosis and Mindfulness for C-L Psychiatrists Treating Anxiety and Pain. Please see our conference agenda for the full schedule.
Thank you to our Annual Program Committee and all the Program Subcommittees for all their work on developing a fantastic meeting for everyone.
Finally, welcome to our incoming members to our Board of Directors:
Sejal Shah, MD, FACLP, chief of the Division of Medical Psychiatry and Associate Vice-Chair for Clinical Consultation Services at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Durga Roy, MD, FACLP, Medical Director of Johns Hopkins Neuropsychiatry and Brain Injury Clinic and Director for the Consult-Liaison Psychiatry Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Thank all of you for allowing me to lead the Academy through this year. I look forward to seeing you in Miami in November.