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APA Vice President and former Assembly Speaker Richard Harding, M.D., will next month step up to the role of president-elect of APA. The South Carolina psychiatrist outpolled Roger Peele, M.D., of Washington, D.C., by about 2,000 votes out of 10,878 cast in the race.

After learning of the election results, Harding commented to Psychiatric News that he was "extremely pleased with the professionalism of the election and the opportunity for open debate about the issues my opponent and friend, Roger Peele, raised."

He envisions his primary role as president-elect and then president will be "to carry out the strategic plan that so many APA members helped develop." In particular, he said, he is committed "to building a strong partnership between the national APA and the district branches and state associations."

The new president-elect, who is a professor of clinical psychiatry and pediatrics and vice chair of clinical affairs in the neuropsychiatry department at the University of South Carolina, has for the last three years served on the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics. As vice chair of the federal panel’s Subcommittee on Privacy and Confidentiality, Harding has been a forceful advocate for tightening access to patients’ medical records and ensuring that those records remain confidential communications.

The race to succeed Harding as one of APA’s two vice presidents went to Marcia Goin, M.D., of Los Angeles. Goin is completing a three-year term as trustee-at-large and won a decisive victory over R. Dale Walker, M.D., garnering 63.1 percent of the votes.

APA’s new treasurer will be former Board member Carol Bernstein, M.D., of New York. With 52.7 percent of the vote, Bernstein defeated incumbent Maria Lymberis, M.D.

The trustee-at-large contest turned out to be this year’s closest race and pitted two Californians, both early career psychiatrists, against each other. Keith Young, M.D., of Los Angeles outpolled Jacquelyn Chang, M.D., of San Francisco, gaining 50.8 percent of the vote. Last year, the Board of Trustees agreed to ask the Nominating Committee to nominate only early career psychiatrists for this position—one of three at-large seats on the Board—to ensure a stronger voice in policymaking for this constituency.

In a four-way race for member-in-training trustee-elect that triggered APA’s preferential balloting system, Massachusetts psychiatrist Avram Mack, M.D., emerged victorious over Esther Dechant, M.D., Britta Ostermeyer, M.D., and Erin Silvertooth, M.D. Mack is a resident at the Harvard-Longwood psychiatry training program. After the field was narrowed, Mack ended up with 56.1 percent of the vote to 43.9 percent for Ostermeyer.

This year’s election also included balloting for three of the Board’s seven Area trustees. In Area 1 incumbent Kathleen Mogul, M.D., of Massachusetts outpolled Richard Fortier, M.D., and Lloyd Sederer, M.D. The preferential voting system was again invoked since more than two candidates were competing, and no candidate garnered a majority on the first round of vote counting. Mogul had 42.1 percent of the votes after the first round, in which Fortier was eliminated, and 55.4 percent after the second redistribution of votes.

In the other Area races, for Area 4 and Area 7 representative, the victors won by wide margins. Incumbent Area 4 Trustee Norman Clemens, M.D., of Cleveland bested Richard Thurrell, M.D., by 67 percent to 33 percent. In Area 7, whose current representative Michael Myers, M.D., did not run for re-election, Albert Vogel, M.D., of New Mexico gained 71.6 percent of the votes to 28.4 percent won by Vit Patel, M.D., of Hawaii.

All of the winning candidates begin their terms at the close of the annual meeting, which will be held next month in Chicago.

In other questions on the ballot, APA members overwhelming supported a proposal to change APA’s organizational status. There were also six amendments to the APA Bylaws, all of which passed. The first amendment standardizes the process for joining APA and allows a period of provisional membership in both APA and a district branch, while the second clarifies that international fellows and members will be notified of dues arrearages by regular mail rather than registered mail. These two amendments passed by 97.2 percent and 96 percent, respectively.

Amendment 3 changes the way APA’s member-in-training trustee-elect is chosen. Beginning with next year’s election, only members-in-training will be eligible to vote for this position, and nominating petitions for this post can be signed only by members-in-training. This amendment was supported by 82.4 percent of those casting ballots.

Amendment 4, which also won by a landslide, converts one of the Board’s three at-large positions into a seat for early career psychiatrists. All APA members can cast votes in this race. This change received a "yes" vote of 86.7 percent.

Another amendment, this one endorsed by 86.3 percent of voters, removes nonvoting past presidents of APA from the Board of Trustees. While past presidents are voting members of the Board for three years after they complete their term, they have been able to continue as Board members for life without a vote, and thus attend at APA’s expense. They will still be able to attend on the same basis as all other APA members and at their own expense.

The sixth amendment, and the only one on which vote margins were close, modified the change in the amendment on past presidents. This one, which passed by 52.2 percent to 47.8 percent, allows APA presidents elected before 2000 to continue as members of the Board for life.