IPS Will Help Clinicians Adapt to Changes in Mental Health Care

For all practicing psychiatrists, the theme of this year’s Institute on Psychiatric Services (IPS) “Integrating Science and Care in a New Era of Population Health,” signals how the institute will illuminate the rapid shifts impacting our field. These changes emanate from both public policy and emerging scientific advances that will affect our work for at least the next decade The IPS program is full of offerings that will help us orient ourselves and enable us to feel confident in managing our professional destinies.

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We especially look forward to the opening keynote address by former Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D. His prescient dictum that “there is no health without mental health” speaks volumes about where we are today as a field.

This year’s IPS program is divided into six overlapping tracks: Leadership and Advocacy; Clinical Priorities; Collaborative Care; Chemical Misuse; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Issues; and Professional Development. There also will be a special focus on aspects of human rights and community development, particularly as 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.

Institute sessions will delve deeply into all of these related areas. Please review the preliminary program, which will be published in the August Psychiatric Services and can be accessed here.

We want to help conference participants conceptualize and operationalize practice from a truly integrated biopsychosocial vantage point, while also capturing values inherent in recovery-oriented, person-centered work that completes a 21st-century model of care.

Our goal is to enable you to be intellectually stimulated and equipped with practical tools to aid in your quest to be a contemporary and creative professional. See you in San Francisco! ■