Geller, Jeste Vie to Become APA's Next President-Elect

APA Vice President Jeffrey Geller, M.D., and At-Large Trustee Dilip Jeste, M.D., have been tapped by the Nominating Committee to face off for the president-elect post in the 2011 APA election.

Geller, a professor of psychiatry and director of public-sector psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, first served on the Board of Trustees as an Area trustee and now is APA vice president; in 2006 he received the Ron Shellow Award in the APA Assembly, where he served as Area 1 representative.

Jeste is a distinguished professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego. He is a member of the Institue of Medicine and of the DSM-5 Task Force, a founding director of the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education, and former president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.

The position of secretary is also up for election this year, having last year been separated from the formerly combined position of secretary-treasurer. The incumbent, Roger Peele, M.D., of Rockville, Md., and former Area 4 Trustee Sidney Weissman, M.D., of Chicago will face off in that contest.

Two of APA's seven Areas will vote for trustees in the next election. In elections for Area trustee, the Area Council rather than the APA Nominating Committee chooses the candidates.

In Area 2, which includes all of the district branches in New York state, James Nininger, M.D., is running for a second three-year term against Jack Drescher, M.D. Both are from New York City.

In Area 5, which encompasses all of the Southern states as well as the military and Puerto Rico district branches, James Greene, M.D., of Memphis, Tenn., will compete against Gary Weinstein, M.D., of Louisville, Ky.

Also to be elected is the member-in-training trustee-elect (MITTE). The candidates vying for this post are Kurt Cousins, M.D., a second-year resident at the University of Maryland/Sheppard-Pratt; David Driver, M.D., a third-year resident at Georgetown University; and Alik Widge, M.D., a second-year resident at the University of Washington. The MITTE serves in that position without a vote for one year, after which he or she becomes the voting member-in-training trustee for a one-year term.

Beginning with the upcoming election, all members for whom APA has a valid e-mail address on file will receive an electronic ballot. Other members will receive a paper ballot along with instructions on how to vote online if they so choose.

Ballots will be mailed on December 22 along with candidate information and voting instructions.

The deadline for receipt of all ballots is 5 p.m. Eastern time on February 7, 2011.

More information on the election process is posted at <www.psych.org/resources/governance/elections.aspx>.