CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE
Winter 2020 Issue |
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APA Assembly – Resident-Fellow Representative Recap
By Jeong Hoo (Eric) Lee, MD
PGY-3, Department of Psychiatry and NB Science University of Virginia Health System APA Assembly Area 5 Resident-Fellow Member Deputy Representative PSV Resident-Fellow Representative
As the Resident Fellow Member Representative for Area 5, I had the honor and pleasure of being a part of the 93rd Meeting of the APA Assembly this past fall. In the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting was held virtually, which allowed the members to join from many other places, including Japan on the other side of pacific ocean.
There were a lot of great discussions that took place at the assembly deciding on the future directions of the American Psychiatric Association as the organization. Dr. Jeffrey Geller, the current president of APA, announced that, as an organization, we must ensure that structural systemic racism is eliminated within the APA. There will be a consultant team that will assess the entire organization, and then from the assessment, a strategic plan with key recommendations will be developed, although it will likely take some time to fully implement this. The assembly members also approved the action paper supporting the joint meetings of the Council on Minority Mental health and health Disparities and the Assembly Committee of Representatives on Minority/Underrepresented Groups. This will further address the healthcare disparity for minority groups of the population in addition to addressing the structural racism within the organization. The assembly members also discussed and voted to approve a number of other great position statements and action papers at the meeting as well. The topics that these statements and papers focused on ranged expansively from diminishing the barriers in utilizing telehealth and expanding medicaid coverage for maternal postpartum care, to taking action to create a resource document to help guide the choice and use of seclusion versus restraints in clinical settings, to enhancing APA transparency and accountability regarding human and financial resource allocation across all APA components. The assembly also approved the application of several associations, including the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology and the Clinical Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Society, to become Allied Organizations.
These are only a few of the actions that were taken at the assembly meeting. The full details can be accessed by the APA members under the governance meetings section on the APA website. It was such a valuable and humbling experience to be a part of the assembly and to be involved in taking these crucial actions to continue to improve and advance the field of psychiatry in this challenging time.
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