CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE
Spring 2018 Issue |
President's Message
By Joe Mason, MD, MSW, DFAPA
PSV President
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Joe Mason, MD |
I want to thank the many people who made my year as president an enjoyable one. We have a top- notch board who pitch in to problem-solve and the experience and expertise we have available to us is outstanding. There are numerous issues that we have to address during the weeks in between board meetings. Every time something came up, whether it was a piece of legislation being considered or a national initiative from the APA that required input or participation, there was always a prompt response and someone willing to step up and provide the input needed to remedy the situation.
Our APA assembly representatives are second to none and I want to thank Drs. John Shemo, Varun Choudhary and Adam Kaul for their devotion to the society. The time and energy they put in on our behalf is considerable and probably flies under the radar to most of our members, but you should all know that they are serving us well at the national level, are respected by those at the top of the APA and greatly appreciated by those of us on the Board.
Our management company, Ruggles Service Corporation, is simply fabulous and we are lucky to have them keeping our organization running smoothly and making sure we stay on top of everything. They ensure that we provide high quality meetings and their guidance is essential to our functioning. Each of them is an absolute peach of a person and Andrew Mann, Stewart Hinckley, Angela Cronin, Julie Hitt and Teri Allanson have been instrumental in taking care of details so that we can focus on the tasks at hand.
Our lobbyist, James Pickral, and his assistant, Mark Hickman are people who keep us attuned to what’s happening in the legislature and give us a voice in policy-making that has a huge effect on the work we do every day. I cannot overstate how good James is at presenting extremely difficult topics to us in understandable terms and in keeping us in the loop about all that happens in the general assembly.
It is noteworthy that we have an incredibly small PAC fund (ours is around $3,000 and nurse practitioners, psychologists and most other medical specialties have funds over $100,000) and as we look ahead to battles that will need to be fought to maintain our positions in the healthcare delivery system both statewide and nationally, we will need to boost the fund significantly in order to wage these skirmishes. To that end, we recently decided to form a committee made up of society past-presidents to reach out to the membership to provide a surge of funding so that we can keep pace with other groups vying for higher stakes in the treatment of psychiatric patients. Please help make our task easier by giving to the PSV PAC and feel free to do so before we call on you individually.
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| A ribbon cutting ceremony at the new APA headquarters was held on March 16, 2018 at their new location in the Wharf District of Washington, DC. |
Our society is in good hands with the new president, Dr. Meredith Lee, and I look forward to continuing to serve on the board with her in the future. We have been recognized by the APA as having one of the best district branches in the country and the current APA president, Dr. Anita Everett, has come to our meetings this spring and last to recognize us and to keep us involved in her initiatives during her term. Andrew Mann and I went to the recent ceremony for the opening of the new APA headquarters on the wharf in SW DC. It was an outstanding event and is an impressive facility that any of us is welcome to visit and enjoy, so consider going there if you are nearby.
Thanks again to everyone who helped make my year as president a smooth and productive one.
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PSV 2018
FALL MEETING
September 28-29, 2018
Stonewall Jackson Hotel
Staunton, Virginia
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