I am honored to be a candidate for APA president-elect. We are in the midst of exciting scientific and technological advances, evolving health care reform, and economic restructuring. APA needs a strong leader with passion to rejuvenate the organization. My personal and professional experiences have prepared me to take on such a role. I was born in a village in India and became the first Jeste to go to medical school. My wife and I immigrated to the U.S. with relatively few resources other than a desire to learn and grow. I studied at Cornell (psychiatry), George Washington University (neurology), and National Institutes of Health (research). Since joining it as a resident, APA has been an integral part of my professional life. I am a psychiatrist specializing in psychotic disorders and geriatrics, and am privileged to be one of about 60 psychiatrists across the world elected to the Institute of Medicine. My wife is a child psychiatrist, and we have two daughters, both studying medicine.

I have broad-based experience as a clinician, researcher, teacher, advocate, and leader. I established a geriatric psychiatry division at UCSD that partners with a large public mental health system. My research has spanned from neuroscience to community psychiatry, and from schizophrenia to healthy aging. I have mentored over 200 young trainees, many of them women and members of underrepresented minority groups, who have developed successful professional careers. I have visited Capitol Hill to lobby for mental health parity. As their president, I have worked hard to shape several psychiatric organizations (including the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry), in ways that enhanced their missions.

I have no financial relationship with industry.

My priorities as APA president would include:

I would welcome the privilege of serving as APA president and ask for your support. Working together, we can help APA fulfill its mission of "being the voice and conscience of psychiatry."

I request your input and feedback. Please visit my Web site at <www.dilipjeste.com>.

Professional Activities

90%—Administration, clinical work, research, and teaching at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System

10%—Editorship of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, grand rounds, and other lectures at universities

Income

70%—University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine

18%—Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System

12%—Editorship of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, grand rounds, and other lectures at universities