An Online Approach to ‘Finding Equity Through Advances in Mind and Brain in Unsettled Times’

Oh, what a splendid APA Annual Meeting program we have planned for you! Because of the unpredictable nature of COVID-19 and out of an abundance of caution, your 2021 APA Annual Meeting is going to be online as well as a “little bit live.” Our “unsettled times” are reflected in the challenges of the pandemic, structural racism, and health inequities resulting in trauma and isolation for our patients and for ourselves. Your Scientific Program Committee (SPC) has developed a meeting that utilizes creative engagement to respond to these challenges. Here is what’s in store for our faculty and attendees:

Logistics

• Attendees are inivted to participate in the Pre-Conference Expo a day before the meeting to get early access to the Virtual Exhibit Gallery and APA Publishing Bookstore, create a profile, bookmark and add sessions to their calendar, and learn how to navigate the meeting platform.

• Each day will begin with a plenary session featuring a keynote address on a key topic related to our meeting theme. Anthony Fauci, M.D., will be speaking at the Convocation plenary (see Psychiatric News), and we are now finalizing contracts with other superb speakers.

• Each plenary session will be followed by three 90-minute blocks of 15 sessions, for a total of 135 sessions over the three days. Attendees will be able to claim up to 13.5 CME credits for attending the live meeting.

• Each session will begin with a prerecorded 75-minute video played in real time, and attendees will be able to use a chat box to communicate with the presenters. The sessions will end with a live 15-minute Q&A session with the presenters.

• In the virtual Poster Hall, attendees will be able to interact with more than 1,300 poster presenters.

• An additional 75 CME credits will be available by purchasing the APA Annual Meeting On Demand 2021 product. It will include over 260 prerecorded 75-minute sessions, as well as the 135 prerecorded sessions held during the online Annual Meeting. More information on APA on Demand will appear in a future issue.

• For even more CME credit hours, APA’s Division of Education is developing an eight-credit, ABPN- approved MOC-2 self-assessment activity.

The Program

• As noted before, each day begins with a plenary session with a keynote presenter, followed by three blocks of 15 scientific sessions—thus, attendees can view up to four sessions a day. As we have all seen this past year, our country has had to deal with two very challenging issues that will be well represented in sessions at the meeting: diversity and health equity (8% of sessions) and COVID-19 (6% of sessions).

• Participants will find a breadth of topic areas covering a variety of domains in psychiatry: global, political, and social issues; climate change, community psychiatry, women’s health, telemedicine, psychopharmacology, resident training, emergency psychiatry, ethics, child and adolescent psychiatry, psychedelics and cannabis, and emergency psychiatry. There will also be two presidential town halls on initiatives begun by APA President Jeffrey Geller, M.D., M.P.H., structural racism in psychiatry (see Psychiatric News) and defining the number of hospital beds needed in communities (see Psychiatric News).

• Just FYI: This year 10 courses will be offered virtually during the summer. The courses will be specifically designed to maximize interaction between faculty and registrants through small learning communities. More information will be available soon.

APA’s online 2021 Annual Meeting will be a perfect opportunity to further your understanding of a broad number of issues while earning CME credits and to have live interactions with colleagues in real time during the scientific sessions, Poster Hall, and Virtual Exhibit Gallery. Register now. We look forward to “seeing” you there. ■