About the SIG

The Pediatric Consultation-Liaison (“Peds C-L”) SIG began in 2005 as the Child and Adolescent Psychosomatic Medicine Subcommittee of the Academy’s Education Committee. The subcommittee, co-chaired by Drs. Maryland Pao and Susan Turkel, was tasked with networking/mentoring and expanding the child psychiatry consultation-liaison (C-L) membership, and with promoting training and education in pediatric C-L at the annual meetings of the Academy and other national organizations.

Due to changes in the Academy’s governance structure, the Child and Adolescent PM Subcommittee was reformulated in 2009 into the Pediatric Psychosomatic Medicine Special Interest Group and charged with meeting the educational needs of Academy members around pediatric issues. With the change in the Academy’s name in 2018, the name of our SIG also changed, to the Pediatric Consultation-Liaison SIG.

Over the past nine years, our child psychiatry members have participated in Academy annual meetings by providing posters, workshops, and symposia on a variety of topics in Peds C-L.  During this time, the field has grown considerably with the 2006 publication of the Clinical Manual of Pediatric Psychosomatic Medicine by Richard Shaw, MBBS (an Academy member) and David DeMaso, MD; and the 2010 Textbook of Pediatric Psychosomatic Medicine by the same authors, with several contributors from the Academy.

Additional educational resources around pediatric C-L include a bibliography and a training template, available online and in print:

Pao M, Ballard ED, Raza H, Rosenstein D: Pediatric Psychosomatic Medicine: An Annotated Bibliography. Psychosomatics 2007; 48(3):195-204

Walker A, Pao M, Nguyen N: Pediatric Psychosomatic Medicine: Creating a Template for Training. Psychosomatics 2012; 53(6):532-540

Goals of the Peds C-L SIG

1. Network and support child psychiatrists who practice consultation-liaison psychiatry, and encourage their membership in ACLP.
2. Expand membership in ACLP and coordinate with child C-L psychiatrists who are active in the Physically Ill Child Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP).
3. Continue to provide pediatric C-L submissions to the ACLP annual meeting program.
4. Collaborate with other ACLP SIGs in contributions to the annual meeting program and other educational resources.
5. Investigate development of a link with the Pediatric SIG of the American Neuropsychiatric Association.
6. Develop a pediatric C-L research network.
7. Identify resources and criteria for an ACLP pediatric C-L research award.

How to Join the SIG

ACLP Members: To join our SIG, you simply need to update your ACLP membership profile — under “Your Special Interest Group Subscriptions” toward the bottom of your profile page, check the “Pediatric Consultation-Liaison” box. Allow 24 hours for your membership to take effect.

If you are not a member of the ACLP, please send an email indicating your field of interest, your full name and organization, and your telephone number to info@CLpsychiatry.org (email link includes CC to the SIG co-chairs).

We encourage all of our SIG members to also become a member of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. For a pediatric C-L psychiatrist or other mental health clinician, the Academy is an important resource for consultation-liaison psychiatrists including those who manage children and adolescents with complex medical illnesses. The ACLP annual meetings are a great place to learn the latest clinical information and research, to network and be inspired, and to meet with other child psychiatrists who face the same clinical and administrative challenges we do. Membership in ACLP includes a subscription to the Academy’s journal, Psychosomatics. See Membership Advantages for more benefits and Join ACLP for application information.