The American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) held its 13th annual meeting March 12 to 15 in Miami Beach. Established in 1978, the AAGP represents psychiatrists who specialize in the treatment and promotion of mental health and well-being in the elderly. The conference was the largest held to date, with more than 1,100 of the AAGP’s 1,600 members in attendance.

Soo Borson, M.D., outgoing president of the AAGP, characterized the association as "an adolescent organization growing up to take its place in the world." Borson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, took advantage of the meeting to highlight the AAGP’s successes over the past year. In particular, she said she was especially proud of the numerous partnerships and formal liaison relationships that have been developed. The AAGP has partnered with the American Geriatrics Society and the Clinical Geropsychology Section of the American Psychological Association, among others, to hold the Long-Term Care Consensus Conference June 23 to 24 in Washington, D.C. Formal liaisons have been established with these two organizations, as well as with the International Psychogeriatric Association and APA’s own Council on Aging.

"These associations," Borson said in her address at the presidential plenary, "will support action agendas around common themes for interdisciplinary partnerships in research, clinical care, and policy."

Last fall the AAGP Health Services Report was submitted to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and the AAGP recently joined the Association for Health Services Research. Borson announced that, along with the AAGP’s foundation, the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation, the AAGP Clinical Scholars Program has been formalized and will support junior investigators in geriatric psychiatry.

Also at the presidential plenary, Borson awarded the first annual AAGP pioneer awards in recognition of investigators who have made outstanding contributions to the initiation and growth of geriatric psychiatric research in the U.S. (see box below).

Borson also announced plans for National Memory Screening Day, to be sponsored by the AAGP this fall.

Incoming President William E. Reichman, M.D., an associate professor and vice chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, addressed the presidential plenary following Borson. Reichman has a clear vision of what he would like to see the AAGP accomplish over the next year.

"Our field is very heterogeneous," said Reichman. "People need to understand that geriatric psychiatry is made up of leading experts in a wide range of scientific expertise related to aging and mental health."

Reichman noted that AAGP members are community-based practitioners, seeing patients in hospitals, private practice, and long-term care facilities. "We are also public policy experts, academic experts, and research experts; we work in university hospitals, in VA medical centers, and at NIH." Reichman sees the diversity of geriatric psychiatry as its strength.

What brings all of these diverse professionals together, he observed, is a "deep-felt attachment to older patients. We share a special, intimate bond with our patients, in a field that does not shy away from such solid, genuine attachments between patient and provider."

"The real strength of our field," Reichman later told Psychiatic News, "derives from that firm connectedness and the knowledge that our older patients are a source of great wisdom."

Reichman issued a call to AAGP members to be advocates of what older patients should receive as part of their care. He told members that they need to be the strongest voice, setting the priorities for national research into meeting the needs of caring for the elderly.

In the coming year, Reichman will strive to make the AAGP move swiftly and proactively into "a new age of care." Priorities will include improving access to care through efforts to increase public awareness, efforts to help primary care physicians to recognize psychiatric disorders in the elderly, and strong efforts to "give a more visible face, a bolder, more dynamic picture to the profession."

Reichman will concentrate AAGP efforts on forcing Medicare and the Medicare/HMO add-ons to recognize that "geriatric psychiatry is by its very nature intensive, long-term, chronic care."

Reichman continued, "We must secure appropriate funding for care, and geriatric psychiatrists must be appropriately compensated."

Reichman called for a year in which the AAGP is immersed in educational activities. "We know what we do, our patients know what we do, their families know what we do. Now, the public needs to know what we do."