If you have not already done so, please be sure you vote in this year’s APA election. I especially urge you to vote in favor of APA’s Amended and Restated Bylaws, which will allow APA to proceed with our corporate restructuring. As I have discussed previously, this reorganization is essential to allow us to shift our spending priorities to support our Association’s advocacy and public education missions.

We have already established the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education to support our missions in science and education. To support our other key missions, our corporate restructuring is necessary. In addition, our change in tax status will allow us to provide much more support to our district branches and state psychiatric societies.

Most of our district branches and state psychiatric societies are already incorporated as 501(c)(6) nonprofit corporations, the structure that our national association is planning. Those who have worked at the local level can attest to the benefits of this structure, in contrast to the constraints that our present 501(c)(3) status place on us.

In order to move forward, we must have membership approval of the bylaws changes. We need a two-thirds majority of voters to pass the proposal, and for the vote to be valid, we need one-third of all eligible voters to vote. It would be a tragedy for this proposal to fail because we don’t have a large enough voter turnout, so your " favor" vote is essential. Please remember that every candidate in this year’s election supports the bylaws changes necessary to support the APA reorganization.

In April the American Psychiatric Association, the Chinese Society of Psychiatry, and the Chinese Medical Association are cosponsoring the Second Sino-American Conference on Psychiatry. This conference will be held in conjunction with the Third Annual Meeting of the Chinese Society of Psychiatry, on April 6 to 10 in Beijing. More than 600 Chinese colleagues are expected to attend this conference.

It is not too late to make plans to attend what I know will be an outstanding meeting. Dr. Jeff Geller, chair of the APA Council on International Affairs, and I have been working hard to ensure that we have an outstanding scientific program as well as opportunities to get to better know our Chinese colleagues and China.

If you have never been to China, or if you would like a return visit, this meeting provides an outstanding opportunity. Please make plans now to join us in China this spring. In addition to the scientific program, a variety of postconference tours has been arranged. For more information regarding the meeting, please contact Jay Schiavo, Office of Member Relations and Marketing, at (202) 682-6350 or via e-mail at jschiavo@psych.org. I look forward to seeing you in Beijing in April.