Remember In-Person Meetings? Time to Reconnect With Colleagues!

As May approaches, the psychiatry community will take a tentative step toward a “new normal.” With sharp drops in COVID-19 cases and knowledge that the vast majority of us are vaccinated and boosted, we will be venturing to New Orleans for the first in-person APA Annual Meeting in three years! Like many of you, I look forward to this meeting to reconnect with dear friends and colleagues, make new connections, expand my knowledge base and skills, engage in self-reflection, and take a break to connect to the world around us. New Orleans is a terrific city in which to meet with its storied history, diverse population, wonderful restaurants, and great music complementing a stellar educational program.

This year’s meeting theme is the “Social Determinants of Mental Health,” a crucial topic for our times. There will be over 300 sessions and 1,000 posters on more than 50 topics to meet the needs and interests of our attendees. Five full-day Master Courses are also included on psychopharmacology, suicide, first-episode psychosis, motivational interviewing, and buprenorphine.

New this year is the Clinical Updates Track, whose 19 sessions focus on several ABPN competency areas, including mood and anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, substance use, personality disorders, and sleep and eating disorders. The sessions were carefully selected by the Scientific Program Committee to include both the latest science and best practices and aim to give attendees the practical tools and the information they need to enable them to provide optimal and up-to-date care for their patients.

A wide range of psychiatric topics will be addressed in other sessions, including “Psychedelics in Psychiatry: Past, Present, and Pressing Issues,” “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Psychiatry,” “Apps and Innovations to Support the Practice of Psychiatry,” “Dimensions of Personality,” and “The Shame of Suicide and Attempted Suicide in Physicians.” On a perhaps lighter note, “Jazz and Patient Communication” seeks to provide a novel approach to considering patient-provider interactions. Notable speakers this year include Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., Robin Carhart-Lewis, Ph.D., Nada Stotland, M.D., M.P.H., Stephen Stahl, M.D., Ph.D., Jack Drescher, M.D., and Altha Stewart, M.D.

To support the Annual Meeting theme, a new plenary will be held Monday, May 23. During the session, Sarah Vinson, M.D., will join Harvard economist Peter Blair, Ph.D., for a fireside chat addressing the social determinants of mental health from a multidisciplinary lens. Also, APA’s Presidential Task Force on the Social Determinants of Mental Health is organizing several sessions to update attendees on its work and progress in advocating for equitable mental health care for all. Presentations on structural racism across social determinants, broadening the definition of SDoMH to include aspects that have a far greater impact on the health of psychiatric patients, challenges associated with evidence-based practices in American Indian and Indigenous community mental health, as well as others reinforce our need to reflect and act as both clinicians and responsible citizens.

Notably, this year’s research track is by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA; Psychiatric News) and includes eight sessions on topics such as neuroplasticity and treatment of addictions, neurobiology of sleep and substance use, noninvasive brain stimulation, and research updates on the use of methamphetamine. This track will kick off on Saturday, May 21, at 1:30 p.m., with NIDA Director Nora Volkow, M.D., discussing “Social Determinants of Substance Use Disorders During COVID Time.”

Most importantly, please know that the safety of our meeting attendees, speakers, and guests is our number one concern. Everyone at the meeting must be fully vaccinated, and the convention center and hotels have all instituted protocols to protect the health and safety of all attendees and exhibitors.

APA Medical Director and CEO Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A., the Scientific Program Committee, the APA staff, and I hope you will join us in New Orleans in May to reconnect, reflect, grow, and learn. There really is something for everyone!

Laissez les bons temps rouler! ■

Dr. Pender would like to thank Catherine Crone, M.D., chair of APA’s Scientific Program Committee, for her assistance in writing this article.