Two of psychiatry's most prominent names have been chosen to compete in the
race to be the next president-elect of APA. The Nominating Committee announced
last month that Donna Norris, M.D., of Wellesley, Mass., and Alan Schatzberg,
M.D., of Stanford, Calif., will face off in that contest.
Norris is secretary-treasurer of APA, chair of the Ethics Appeals Board,
and a past speaker of the APA Assembly. Schatzberg, president of American
Psychiatric Publishing Inc. and chair of its Board of Directors, is chair of
the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University
School of Medicine.
The contest to succeed Norris as secretary-treasurer pits David Fassler,
M.D., of Burlington, Vt., against Burton Reifler, M.D., of Winston-Salem, N.C.
Fassler is an at-large member of the Board of Trustees; Reifler is a member of
the APA Ethics Committee.
Three candidates will vie for the upcoming vacancy in one of the three
at-large positions on the Board of Trustees—Dilip Jeste, M.D., of San
Diego, a member of the DSM-V Task Force; Francis Lu, M.D., of San
Francisco, a corresponding member of the Council on Minority Mental Health and
Health Disparities; and Ann Marie Sullivan, M.D., of New York, who is
currently the Area 2 trustee.
The race for member-in-training trustee-elect will also be a three-way
race. The nominees are Melinda Fierros, M.D., a resident at Wright State
University; Christian Neal, M.D., a resident at Palmetto Health/University of
South Carolina; and Scott Shaffer, M.D., a resident at Brown University.
In addition to the elections for the national positions on the Board, two
of APA's seven Areas will hold trustee elections in 2008.
Area 2, which includes all the district branches in New York state, will
also be a three-candidate contest, with Richard Altesman, M.D., James
Nininger, M.D., and Seeth Vivek, M.D., competing for the position.
In Area 5, which encompases all of the Southern states from Virginia to
Texas, as well as Puerto Rico and the district branch for psychiatrists in the
military, the current representative, Mary Helen Davis, M.D., of Louisville,
Ky., is facing Harold Ginzburg, M.D, of Metairie, La.
Paper ballots will be mailed out on December 22, the same day on which
members for whom APA has an e-mail address will receive, via e-mail,
instructions for voting online. Members who would like to receive an online
ballot only, an option that can be selected in the Members' Corner of the APA
Web site, will receive an e-mail with a ballot-control number and online
voting instructions. The address for indicating this choice is<http://onlineapa.psych.org/OnlineBallot.aspx>.
The deadline for receipt of both paper and online ballots is 5 p.m. Eastern
time on February 5, 2008. (See APA's Election Guidelines Emphasize Dignity,
Courtesy, and Fairness. The guidelines prescribe members' election-related
activities.)
Candidates' biographies and election statements will appear in the December
7 issue of Psychiatric News. ▪