See Promises and Pitfalls of New Advances in C-L Psychiatry, this issue.

The Education Committee coordinates the activity of the six ACLP Education Subcommittees. We will be continuing to host the monthly webinars, alternating between virtual journal clubs and clinical case conferences. If you would like to suggest topics for the webinar series, please contact Lisa Rosenthal, MD, FACLP, or another member of the Education Committee.

The Fellowship Education Subcommittee (FES) has remained active over the past several months. Its Curriculum Workgroup has developed a new clinical vignette to be added to the ones currently available to Program Directors (PDs) on the ACLP website. 

As in past years since the onset of COVID, the Recruitment Workgroup has updated ACLP’s interviewing guidelines for this application cycle, which continue to evolve as the nature of COVID’s impact evolves. The Scholarship Workgroup is finalizing a manuscript for JACLP submission reporting results from a FES-designed survey for PDs and fellows regarding DEI in fellowship training. In a joint effort with the Online Education Subcommittee, the FES also updated the ACLP fellows webpage.

Based on positive feedback from PDs, the FES will continue to encourage fellowship programs to use the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). This year, ERAS has adopted a platform called Thalamus as its sole resource for interview scheduling, so the FES sponsored a training on Thalamus for PDs and program administrative staff. 

Also new since the last Annual Meeting was the initiation of virtual PD forums, which has allowed PDs to discuss topics of shared interest beyond the traditional forum at the Annual Meeting. At CLP 2025 there will be two FES-sponsored sessions, one on artificial intelligence and the other on bias and microaggressions.

In coming months, the FES will also sponsor a two-part webinar on starting and growing a C-L fellowship program.

The subcommittee is forming two workgroups: the advanced practice provider (APP) education workgroup, and the non-psychiatry clinician education workgroup. Each subcommittee member will join one of these workgroups.

The APP education workgroup will develop the third annual APP Skills course, a half-day course on C-L Psychiatry essentials with an emphasis on interprofessional themes, for the Annual Meeting. Based on feedback and needs assessments, we will introduce new topics (e.g: neurological/medical mimics of psychiatric disorders) and build on our interactive format. We will also start an APP mentoring drop-in group focused on career development themes (e.g: transitioning to practice as a new APP, scope of practice, etc.). The APP education workgroup will also develop commentary papers, guidelines, and/or workshops on APP education in C-L Psychiatry.

The goal of the non-psychiatry clinician education workgroup will be developing educational content for clinicians specializing in non-psychiatric medical or surgical specialties. The first project will be creating a needs assessment survey to disseminate to medicine residents and attendings. The workgroup will likely create didactic content and/or curricula that can be featured on the ACLP website and/or marketed to residency programs. The workgroup will also pursue scholarly endeavors such as workshops for medicine conferences.

The team developed another challenging MOC self-assessment for the ACLP Annual Meeting in 2024. We were able to offer 12 SA credits this year, which is a tremendous asset for ACLP members.

We will continue to contribute focused questions for the Psy-Q: website designed for teaching/learning across training levels, currently containing 250 multiple choice questions pertaining to psychiatry. Please feel free to send any additional content/questions/ideas to Montie Meyer (flmeyer@partners.org). Go to Welcome : PSY-Q to check out this resource.

The subcommittee is working with the ACLP Education Committee to develop accessible resources for completing the Article Based Continuing Certification (ABCC) Pathway. We encourage attendance at the ACLP virtual journal club which is a great chance to participate in expert discussions of ABCC articles (then take the exam afterwards independently). Previous sessions can be found here.

We have updated the clinical PIP which is due to expire and added additional clinical PIPs pertinent to C-L Psychiatry (undergoing ABPN approval and available soon).

The Academy’s Instagram account was launched in May 2024. Our metrics of success are:

• Follower count within the first year of at least 500 (currently 721).
• At least 50 posts within the first 12 months of having an active account—ahead of schedule.
• An average of 20 likes per post by the end of the first 12 months, and a likes total exceeding 1,000.
• Feedback from stakeholders, including the ACLP Board, president, trainees, and C-L psychiatrists at different career stages.

The subcommittee continues to actively plan and coordinate the ACLP case conference webinar series with a successful January webinar on catatonia by Andrew Francis, MD. We will represent the Integrative Medicine SIG in March.

We have coordinated original content of 20 How-to guides for quick access to trainees, and have established  a peer review and update process for these resources. A writing group originally formed from this committee recently published updated recommendations for training residents in C-L Psychiatry. The subcommittee has also taken on the role of creating a more concise and updated bibliography page on the ACLP website. Future projects include continued case conference webinar series, more updated How-to guides, and proposed manuscripts regarding core competencies, didactic curricula, and guidance on focused subspecialty electives for residents.

The subcommittee reviews applications for the following awards and forwards winner recommendations to the ACLP Board:

• Eleanor and Thomas P. Hackett Memorial Award—Due April 30.
• Award of Special Recognition—Due April 30.
• Distinguished Service Award—Due April 30.
• Stoudemire Innovations in Education Award—Due April 30.
• Visiting Professorship Program—Due July 1.
• Trainee Travel Grants—Due July 1.
• Academy Fellowship (FACLP)—Due July 1.
• Dorfman Journal Paper Awards—Nominated via the JACLP Editorial Board.

We look forward to another productive year reviewing all of the exciting work completed by nominated C-L psychiatrists!

The committee is looking forward to 2025 and the Annual Meeting in San Antonio!  We are undertaking several activities for 2025. One of our major activities is to review and select the Lipsitt award and Webb fellowships; we are thrilled to report that commensurate with the growth in the Academy, the Board has approved expanding the Webb fellowship class from six fellows to eight fellows per year. The quality of applications has been exceptional and our Webb fellows are truly rising stars in the Academy, so we look forward to making this program available to more of our junior colleagues.

We also work closely with the ACLP Research and the Guidelines and Evidence-based Medicine Subcommittees to execute their activities. Following a successful full-day Developing Scholarship and Research colloquium event in Miami, the Research Subcommittee is hard at work planning a 2025 event for San Antonio (see below), which will include individualized feedback on various ‘works in progress’ (e.g., case reports, potential study designs) for interested Academy members. They are also continuing their work to standardize and refine the selection processes for research awards to align with the remainder of ACLP awards.

In 2025, our Guidelines and Evidence-Based Medicine Subcommittee (see below) will assist in developing a resource document on medical aid in dying (MAiD)/Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS). Our Academy has unique expertise in the psychiatric care of patients facing terminal illness to contribute to ongoing discussions of ethics, policy, and practice in this rapidly evolving area.

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