Effective Advocacy Key to Future Of Research, Patient Care

The APA annual meeting is, in my view, the finest medical meeting in America. Whenever I have the opportunity to teach medical students, I show them the meeting's scientific program. With its hundreds of workshops, symposia, lectures, and other types of sessions that cover a wide variety of clinical and practice issues, the program demonstrates the breadth of our field and the excitement of our work at the interface between brain and mind.

For those of us who are already psychiatrists or in training to become one, the annual meeting is the best opportunity to remain current with the latest advances in treatments, new research findings, and critical issues that impact our field. It is no surprise that it is the largest psychiatric meeting worldwide with more than 20,000 attending, including 6,000 to 9,000 psychiatrists who come from every corner of the planet.

This year the annual meeting will be held in Toronto, Canada. The theme I have selected is “From Science to Public Policy: Advocacy for the Profession and Patients.”

One of the perks of being president of APA is working with the Scientific Program Committee and staff to ensure that the program reflects the theme chosen for the meeting. One avenue is through “presidential symposia,” and we will have three this year: The first, a joint symposium with the World Psychiatric Association, will discuss international perspectives on advocacy with an emphasis on the biopsychosocial approach in different countries throughout the world. The second, a symposium on public psychiatry, will have a major focus on advocacy for patients most in need with serious and persistent mental illness. The third is a symposium on ethical issues related to the interrogation of detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere—an important topic as we struggle with terrorist threats and major challenges to the identity of our profession. The symposium will feature military leaders as well as prominent forensic psychiatrists.

Also related to the theme on advocacy are papers, special sessions, workshops, and other symposia on such critical issues as parity for mental health care under health insurance, the new Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, cutbacks in Medicaid, and—a particularly appropriate topic since we're meeting in Canada—perspectives on the single-payer universal access system in contrast to the complex, multipayer, nonsystem we have in the United States.

For those who want to keep up on the latest from office practice to community psychiatry practice, care for specific age and ethnic populations, psychopharmacology and psychotherapy, APA's annual meeting is for you. It is also a tremendous opportunity for reunions and collegiality. The annual meeting is an opportunity to renew old friendships and catch up with colleagues from across the country. I find it a bit of a time warp when I encounter a colleague whom I haven't seen since the meeting last year or the year before and then begin our conversation in almost mid-sentence from the last encounter. Freud said that there is no sense of time in the unconscious.

I always look forward to the annual meeting, and this year especially. It's the best evidence for me that the most interesting medical specialty in America is psychiatry and confirmation for attendees that we made the right choice of professional practice.