As a Member of APM, I ask that you support me for APA President-elect. I have a long record of supporting Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (now Psychosomatic Medicine).
In the early 1990s, at Tom Wise’s request, I was one of the leaders for PM subspecialty. I thus began the process by making the motion in the Assembly asking the APA Board of Trustees support our subspecialty’s recognition by the ABPN. In the effort to obtain this recognition, I was among the first to suggest to Tom that, reluctantly, we would need to adopt the term “psychosomatic.” This, as you know, paved the way for both the ABPN to accept this concept that led to PM as a subspecialty!
I am very aware that the APM is the representative organization for PM. In the late 1980s, I began the effort, with considerable help from Carolyn Robinowitz and Paul Fink, to have the APA include major subspecialty organizations in APA’s governance. As a result, APM has a seat in the Assembly. But we need to do more.
IF I am elected President-elect:
1. APM, not I, will decide who fills the vacancies within the Council on Psychosomatic Medicine
2. APM will be encouraged to select corresponding members of other components, such as the Council on Psychiatry and Law.
3. I will encourage the Assembly to give major psychiatric subspecialty organizations, such as APM, more than one vote in the Assembly.
4. I will encourage the APA to turn to APM to explore the feasibility to APM being the author of Practice Guidelines that APM can address better than APA. For example, the APA Delirium Practice Guideline is nine years old. I think APM could keep it current and improve it in other ways.
I will continue to champion the role of PM within the APA by strengthening the role APM plays in our profession via the APA.
Finally, I believe my friend Michael Blumenfield has been an outstanding psychosomatic psychiatrist, and I can understand that some will want to vote for him for President-elect. In this three-way election, you can vote “2” for me without jeopardizing his chances of winning.
