Candidate for Member-in-Training Trustee-Elect

About the Candidate

Member-in-Training, 1998

Candidate’s Views

I am proud to be a psychiatrist, and I am proud to be a member of APA. In the wake of the tragic events that pierced our national senses on September 11, our chosen APA leaders and our national and local district branch staffs have been nothing short of heroic in their commitment, not only to our patients and our profession, but also to the community that makes up our nation and our world. Never before has APA been called upon by so many in such need, from individual patients to national governmental and business leaders. Never before has APA been called upon to participate in the healing of our nation from a crisis of such complex international influences. And yet, this is a call that APA is answering. We are nearly 37,500 skilled, talented, and dedicated physicians, and we have reason to carry ourselves with pride. We are the profession that seeks to assist healing when the factors causing pain remain hidden and when the desired information is incomplete.

I would like to participate in the shaping of the new direction our APA must take in order to assist our patients and our profession in meeting, facing, and overcoming the new constraints imposed upon us, whether by egregious managed care company practices or by international terrorism unleashed on our own shores. Throughout my life and years in training, I have set a course of dealing with routine problems routinely, but when routines do not work, considering novel strategies. Our nation and our APA are in a period where, as never before, novel strategies and international awareness are critical. Considering options broadly and then taking the best possible course of action is the pattern I have set during my years of training at the local, community, and state levels in Hawaii. It is this pattern that I hope to share with all of you by serving APA at the national level as a member of the Board if elected member-in-training trustee-elect.

I was born in New York and raised on Molokai, “The Friendly Isle” of the Hawaiian island chain. While serving as high school senior class president, I founded the Molokai Earth Preservation Organization, which promotes environmental preservation and restoration, and which is still in existence today. During my undergraduate years at Stanford University, I served as a peer counselor, volunteered at Napa State Hospital, and led a group of undergraduates to do volunteer work on the Zuni Pueblo Reservation. During medical school in Hawaii, I tutored high school students and researched how Native-Hawaiian health status could be improved through the health education of sixth graders. This, in turn, led to my involvement in improving the awareness of school and community child program staff on child and adolescent psychiatric needs and how these needs could be met.

During residency, as resident representative to the Hawaii Psychiatric Medical Association, I became more acutely aware of the impact of public policy on our day-to-day practice. I also learned, however, that through APA we can guide public policy toward becoming more patient and psychiatrist friendly. I have spoken with consumer groups, submitted testimony to the Hawaii state legislature opposing psychologists inappropriately attempting to prescribe medications, and with other members of APA, residents, and medical students, have personally lobbied dozens of Hawaii state legislators on issues important to every APA member.

Access, parity, patient protection, privacy, and converting negative stigma into positive acceptance of the value of mental illness treatment by psychiatrists—these are what I will continue to work toward on behalf of our patients.

Member recruitment and retention, especially of residents, increased resident involvement in community mental health events, public policy formulation, legislative testimony submission, and increased resident training in HIV/AIDS prevention (one of my areas of active research)—these are what I will continue to work toward on behalf of our members, especially our members-in-training.

If elected to the position of member-in-training trustee-elect, I will bring the perspective of a team-playing, community-activist member-in-training to the position of member-in-training trustee-elect. I will research the issues on which I will be called upon to vote; widely solicit input, especially from my fellow members-in-training; consider options broadly; and seek consensus among the best alternative courses of action.

I believe in APA. I believe in the integrity of our members and in our ability to successfully identify and solve the problems we face, no matter how difficult.

Please vote for me as your first choice for the position of member-in-training trustee-elect in the upcoming APA election. It would be an honor to serve you in this capacity. Thank you.

Primary Loci of Work and Sources of Income

Work: 100%—University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine Psychiatry Residency Program

Income: 100%—University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine Psychiatry Residency Program