Want to join an Academy SIG? For instructions, visit https://www.clpsychiatry.org/sigs/how-to-join/

Given the popularity of bioethics talks at the meeting, we are collaborating with ACLP president Sherwood Brown, MD, PhD, DFAPA, MBA, FACLP, to develop a bioethics-themed plenary session for CLP 2025. Our SIG is also working with the Research & Evidence-Based Practice Committee to develop an ACLP resource document on psychiatric evaluations for medical aid in dying/physician assisted suicide (our SIG recognizes a diversity of opinions on the matter, including terminology).

Our education work group put together a list of updated articles for the legal/ethical issues section of the ACLP bibliography. Members of this workgroup also created a How-To Guide for Treatment Over Objection. With several other projects brewing, they are looking forward to putting together abstracts to submit for CLP 2025. Our DEI work group has had thoughtful discussion about the encroachment of the current political climate into DEI work in many states in the US. The group hopes to create a space for future discussions on the role of ethical obligations and conscientious objection in teaching DEI concepts on the C-L Psychiatry service to support colleagues.

Lastly, the SIG would like to recognize outgoing chair Shannon Mazur, DO, for her years of service, and we are grateful to our SIG advisers Kenneth Ashley, MD, FACLP, and Cindy Geppert, MD, MPH, FACLP. In 2025 we welcome new leadership from Anita Chang, DO, as vice-chair and Sam Zwiebel, MD, MA, as chair.

Visit the Bioethics SIG page on the Academy website here.

Emergency psychiatric talks at the 2024 Annual Meeting included:

• Clinical Updates in Emergency Psychiatry: Integrated Care at its Best (sponsored by our SIG, the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry, and the Behavioral Emergency Section of ACEP).
• Brief oral papers: Evaluation of an Emergency Department and Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Co-management Model at an Academic Medical Center and Functional Decline in Geriatric Patients Awaiting Psychiatric Admission in the ER.

The SIG will hold quarterly meetings this year to discuss dissemination opportunities. Suggested topics have included: ‘Difficult Conversations in the Emergency Department’; ‘Special Populations including Geriatrics and Neurodiverse Patients’; ‘Trainees/learners in the ED Setting’; ‘ED-based Brief Interventions’; and ‘Coordination of Care with Systems Outside of the ED Setting’, e.g: law enforcement, group homes, child protective services, and skilled nursing facilities.

For those looking for additional learning opportunities with associated CME, Heather Wobbe leads the emergency psychiatry journal club which individuals can join by subscribing to the Google group ‘National Emergency Psychiatry Journal Club.’

Visit the Emergency Psychiatry page on the Academy website here.

Our SIG presented nine sessions at the 2024 Annual Meeting:

• Invited Presidential Session: Food and Brain Health.
• Plenary: Mindfulness as a Doorway to Whole Health.
• Pre-Conference Skills Course: Vitamins, Minerals and Supplements in Psychiatry: Practical applications, current evidence and safety.
• Pre-Conference Skills Course: Hypnosis and Mindfulness for C-L Psychiatrists treating Anxiety and Pain.
• General Session: What’s Really Bugging You? The role of the gut microbiome in modulating psychiatric disease in the C-L setting.
• General Session: Heavy Hitters: Understanding and Treating Antipsychotic Induced Metabolic Syndrome, sponsored by the Cardiovascular Psychiatry and the Integrative Medicine SIGs.
• General Session: Lifestyle Medicine for the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatrist.
• General Session: Unveiling the Healing Potential: The Power of the Vagus Nerve in Treating Psychiatric Illness—A Hands-On Experience, sponsored by the Integrative Medicine SIG.
• Mindfulness Meditation (Thursday and Saturday mornings).

Our SIG is presenting a case conference for the ACLP webinar in March (see: ACLP News, this issue).

And we have identified topics we’d like to discuss in a 20-30 minute ACLP podcast episode. They include:

• Physical activity/exercise, yoga, and other movement-based activities.
• Mindfulness.
• Green spaces.
• What integrative medicine is and is not.

We have also listed resources for our members and others in the ACLP community, including: reputable journals to subscribe to (e.g: American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Mindfulness) as well as reputable programs that offer educational certificates/degrees in integrative medicine (e.g: Jefferson, Georgetown, University of AZ, etc.)

We are looking for volunteers for a working group to take the lead on webpage curation and updates. Tasks to consider are:

• Creating a resource list (see item above) and adding that to the webpage.
• Collecting a list of links to videos/slides for Integrative-Medicine-related presentations at the upcoming and recent CLP meetings.
• Updating the bibliography.
• Annual updates of the webpage to make sure it’s up to date.

We would also like to create likely 2-4 working groups (each with a designated leader) that might cover webpage; education and research; practice/implementation of Integrative Medicine; and advocacy. There might also be interest in identifying subgroups within our SIG so that they could communicate and provide peer-supervision for each other. Examples might be content-based or practice-based, for example: vitamins/minerals/supplements/food; movement- and environment-based interventions; providing care/consultations in private practice.

Uma Naidoo, MD, is among speakers at the APA’s Los Angeles annual meeting in May—presenting at an invited presidential session, and an accepted session on Nutritional, Lifestyle and Metabolic Psychiatry.

Visit the Integrative Medicine SIG page on the Academy website here.

We have held monthly SIG meetings since CLP 2024. Meetings are typically geared toward ACLP abstract submissions and discussion of scholarly products. We have discussed and planned podcast recordings in coordination with the Online Education Subcommittee. As of now, our SIG has published one podcast on sexual dysfunction and we have two more planned: Addiction and comorbid pain, with Kirk Harris, MD, and Addressing racism/implicit bias within the addiction population, with Andrew Lancia, MD. Occasionally, we will also hold interesting patient case threads.

We will also focus on producing a preconference course on Internal Medicine Updates for the C-L Psychiatrist, as requested by the Annual Meeting Committee. We have a dedicated group of individuals who have presented this topic in the past and are primed to put forth a competitive submission for 2025.

One of our SIG members will also be featured in the monthly case vignette webinar series in concert with the Residency Education Subcommittee, and we will work on purging our listserv as it is close to 1,600 members and in sore need of updating.

Visit the Medicine & Psychiatry SIG page on the Academy website here.

The SIG had a productive year and each of our task force groups met at the Annual Meeting in Miami to discuss goals and projects to work on in 2025. We continue to meet every two months via Zoom, and to work on the development and expansion of these task forces, reflective of the SIG’s mission. We are also discussing a new task force dedicated to guidelines development. We have a growing participation and many new members, including trainees and students.

Our task groups are busily working away on designated projects and being diligent about maintaining deadlines for scholarly products:

SIG-sponsored symposia task force: Currently under the leadership of Badr Ratnakaran, MD, the task force has expanded its participants and had six abstracts accepted and presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting. The group had its first meeting of 2025 in January with a focus on developing collaboration based on clinical content areas, enhancing member engagement, and continuing to provide leadership and assistance to trainees in developing their careers.

Education task force: Vincent Fryer, MD, has taken the lead on this task force, and group members continue to compile a list of online resources in neuropsychiatry. In collaboration with the Online Education Group, by this year’s ACLP Annual Meeting, the SIG will have a newly launched website of video lectures, literature references, and neuropsychiatry-focused websites among other educational resources for Academy member to access. The SIG has been invited to give an ACLP Education Committee-sponsored case conference; topics will include functional neurological disorders, traumatic brain injury, and autoimmune encephalitis. The online Neuropsychiatry education website is underway, and the task group will be sending a link to the SIG to enumerate top neuropsychiatric education resources to be built into our website. Robust monthly member case discussions via the listserv continue among our very active members.

Scholarship task force: Under the leadership of Flannery Meredith, MD, this task force has successfully led manuscript production. Currently several scholarship projects are underway or have been included in a systematic review on Neuropsychiatric symptoms in COVID 19; a cross-institution retrospective chart review research study on treatment of neuropsychiatric symptoms after TBI; and an educational report on the history and success of our SIG. A systematic review on Huntington’s Disease and OCD continues to remain in progress. The group has 10 ongoing projects at this time in neuropsychiatric subspecialty groups such as Functional Neurological Disorders, Movement Disorders, Catatonia, and TBI.

DEI Task force: Led by Victoria Wong Murray (trainee), this relatively newly formed task force will be working on incorporating DEI initiatives and how they pertain to Neuropsychiatry.

This is the first year the SIG has been approached by the American Neuropsychiatric Association leadership for cross-collaboration around educational efforts. The first collaboration was an invited journal club presentation given by Durga Roy, MD, FACLP, on her recent publication on headaches and mild TBI in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. The second was the ANPA grand rounds talk on Cognitive, Anxiety, and Depressive Disorders in the Fragile X-associated Tremor/Ataxia Syndrome which was well attended by SIG and ANPA members.

This year the SIG will: 

• Continue to move forward with collaborative efforts with ANPA, to provide our expertise as C-L psychiatrists who integrate Neuropsychiatry into our work, and for ANPA to provide educational resources to us surrounding recent research advances in Neuropsychiatry.
• Continue to collaborate with newer SIGs, such as the Critical Care Psychiatry SIG, to create high-quality content presentations for the Annual Meeting as well as continued scholarship and publications (currently we are contributing a chapter to the new Critical Care Psychiatry Textbook).
• Recruit more medical students, residents, fellows and junior faculty by enhancing member engagement.

Visit the Neuropsychiatry SIG page on the Academy website here.

Several submissions were entered for CLP 2024, including co-sponsored submissions with other SIGs. Those chosen for the conference were well-attended, and the SIG was honored to have ACLP past-president, Maryland Pao, MD, FACLP, present the Pediatric C-L Update. Our SIG meeting at the conference was well attended, with attendees of all career stages from throughout the US as well as Canada and the UK. Many timely and exciting topics were discussed, and ideas were proposed for the 2025 meeting. We also discussed an exciting opportunity for the SIG to participate in the Academy’s case conference webinar series in 2025.

Leaders of our SIG and AACAP’s Physically Ill Child Committee (PICC) have established a more direct liaison/ partnership. Laura Markley, MD, FACLP, has also been appointed to a two-year term on the PICC. Many SIG members are dual members of AACAP and ACLP, and AACAP has allowed all of our members to participate in their professional listserv for several years. However, with more deliberate collaboration, we hope to maximize expertise being shared and opportunities to add ACLP’s voice/support to efforts around pediatric catatonia work as well as additional pediatric C-L Psychiatry topics.

We plan to have a meeting in early March to coordinate efforts. Use of the SIG’s listserv has been increasing with requests related to mentorship, membership, and topics for potential submission to CLP 2025, as well as continued discussion of clinical quagmires via the AACAP PICC listserv. We also hope to coordinate an update of the SIG’s webpage. Dr. Pao has also proposed a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry ACLP Award, which we would be very excited to see come to fruition.

Visit the Pediatric C-L Psychiatry SIG page on the Academy website here.

The SIG is forming several work groups in the aftermath of the Annual Meeting, including the:

Resource/Curriculum Group responding to the Education Committee’s call to update the bibliography section of the ACLP website. Members have been active in making article recommendations, and we are currently undergoing a ranking of those articles for their perceived accessibility and utility for trainees and colleagues under the leadership of Katherine Wu, MD.

Case Conferences Group to explore scheduling clinical cases by teleconference, for purposes including discussion of psychodynamic formulations and a Ballant-like support for C-L Psychiatry to discuss difficult cases and provide peer support and mentoring.

Finding Meaning in Reading Group to identify and read together topics of interest, book-club style. This group is under the leadership of Amvrine Ganguly, MD. The SIG is also moving forward in restructuring its leadership, with new two-year term limits for chairs, who will turn over after the November 2025 Annual Meeting, and the creation of a two-year vice-chair position, which is newly filled by Amvrine Ganguly, MD.

WhatsApp continues to be a popular and effective way of staying connected in addition to the listserv.

Visit the Psychological Considerations SIG page on the Academy website here.

The SIG recently transitioned to new leadership. We extend our sincere thanks to Dave Kroll, MD, FACLP, for his many years of dedicated leadership. This year we welcomed new co-chairs, Pat Buckley, MD, and Amanda Mihalik, MD.

A key focus has been finalizing a White Paper on a quality strategy for C-L Psychiatry. This project, based on a systematic review of how C-L services measure their value to external stakeholders—including hospital systems, payers, and credentialing agencies—aims to provide a framework for assessing, demonstrating, and improving the value of C-L Psychiatry services.

Alongside this work, we are launching new initiatives to support SIG members and the broader ACLP community. One of these is a bibliography and suggested reading list featuring key papers on quality and safety in C-L Psychiatry, designed to serve as a resource for trainees and others interested in learning more about these topics.

To ensure our efforts align with members’ needs, we are conducting a survey to identify priorities and opportunities for collaboration. This feedback will help shape future initiatives, including potential submissions for the ACLP Annual Meeting. We welcome input from members and look forward to continued collaboration to advance quality and safety in C-L Psychiatry.

ACLP’s strong representation in the Telepsychiatry domain is enhanced with news from Andrew Alkis, MD, Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). The MUSC Center for Telehealth has been awarded a HRSA-grant from the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth (OAT) Behavioral Health Integration Evidence Based Telehealth Network Program.

Objectives are to improve access to integrated behavioral health services in primary care settings as well as expand and improve the quality of health information available to health care providers by evaluating the effectiveness of integrating telebehavioral health services into primary care settings and establishing an evidence-based model that can assist health care providers.

They will use the Collaborative Care Model as a means of extending behavioral health services to collaborating primary care sites.

Chair Terry Rabinowitz, MD, DDS, FACLP, is a PI/awardee from OAT that supports the Northeast Telehealth Resource Center, one of 12 regional and two national Telehealth Resource Centers committed to implementing telehealth programs for rural and underserved communities. In addition, he continues to serve on the APA Committee on Telepsychiatry.

SIG member Jim Bourgeois, OD, MD, FACLP, is now the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry section editor for both Psychiatric Times and Psychiatric News. Another member, John De Figueiredo, MD, ScD, has been elected Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists.

Visit the Telepsychiatry SIG page on the Academy website here.

The SIG focuses on clinical and ethical dilemmas related to transplant candidates and recipients. The group discusses the psychosocial evaluation of recipients and donors, and neuropsychiatric, psychological, psychosocial, and existential challenges that these patients face.

The group continues to meet virtually once per month, discussing interesting cases focusing on the above topics and working on collaborations. For the 2025 Annual Meeting, the SIG plans to organize a Transplant Psychiatry Course that can be relevant and helpful to all C-L practitioners, and a series of workshops, oral presentations, and posters that address interesting Transplant Psychiatry topics. The SIG also hopes to organize an international workshop, showcasing Transplant Psychiatry experiences from different countries.

Visit the Transplant Psychiatry SIG page on the Academy website here.

Want to join an Academy SIG?

Visit: https://www.clpsychiatry.org/sigs/how-to-join/  

You can belong to as many SIGs as you wish, and you do not necessarily need knowledge nor experience of the specialty—if you simply want to learn more, here is your opportunity.