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Mezzich, who is Secretary General of the World Psychiatric Association, discussed the development of the "Outline for Cultural Formulation and Glossary of Culture-Bound Syndromes," which was added as an appendix to DSM-IV. The statement is a step toward the integration of cultural perspectives in the understanding of a range of psychiatric illnesses, he said.
"The door is open," Mezzich told psychiatrists, to a full recognition of the role of culture in health and illness, and to the development of a truly patient-centered approach to care that takes into account the multiple dimensions of a patient's experience of health and illness.
Mezzich, a professor of psychiatry and community medicine and head of the division of psychiatric epidemiology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, was presented with the Simon Bolivar Award by Silvia W. Olarte, M.D., chair of APA's Committee of Hispanic Psychiatrists. Mezzich serves as a consultant to the World Health Organization on the Development of ICD-10 and is chair of the Section on Classification, Diagnosis, Assessment, and Nomenclature of the World Psychiatric Association.
(Psychiatric News, June 20, 1997)