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APA needs your vote!
All psychiatrists who are members of the American Medical Association are urged to vote for APA in balloting now occurring for specialty society representation in the AMA House of Delegates.
Specialty societies will be awarded additional delegates based on the number of AMA members who choose that society to speak on their behalf. For every 2,000 votes a specialty society garners, that society is awarded an additional delegate.
APA received an additional delegate in similar balloting last year. The specialty society vote is part of an effort to reorganize the House of Delegates, giving more representation to practice specialty societies.
Specialty society voting is expected to take place every year, according to APA’s Division of Government Relations.
Ballots appeared on the cover of the October 13 issue of American Medical News. The deadline for voting is December 31. (For instructions on how to vote, see "From the President." Note that APA’s code is 516.)
Referring to last year’s vote, Joseph T. English, M.D., APA delegate to the AMA house, said, "We did it before, and we can do it again. It is so critical to our profession that we be energetic and strong in the House of Delegates."
Speaking to fellow APA members, English said, "It’s up to you."
Additionally, members of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry who are also members of the AMA are being encouraged by AACAP to vote for APA.
AACAP President Lawrence Stone, M.D., told Psychiatric News that academy members have nothing to lose and everything to gain by voting for APA.
A notice encouraging AACAP members to vote for APA will appear in the academy’s newsletter, and Stone will also be communicating with members about the vote in a letter to be mailed out this month.
"We are going to do everything we can to encourage our members to vote for APA," Stone told Psychiatric News. "There is a good chance APA can gain extra representation, and no chance for the academy to do that.
"We can all stand together on this," said Stone, who is executive medical director of Laurel Ridge Hospital, San Antonio.
The move toward reorganization, first approved by the House of Delegates in December 1995, stems from concerns over the loss of AMA members. At that meeting, the "Report on the Study of the Federation" was presented to the house, offering a vision for a significant overhaul of the way the house of medicine is organized.
The report was presented by the Consortium for the Study of the Federation, of which psychiatrists Judy Linger, M.D., and Clifford Moy, M.D., were members.
Moy, who is clinical director at Austin State Hospital, told Psychiatric News last year that the impetus to reorganize has been driven by the perception that organized medicine is no longer attracting and serving the interests of the individual physician.
Moy also said that the work of the consortium, which began in May 1994, involved focus groups and interviews with state medical society leadership, AMA leaders, and individual physicians.
That research revealed that the current federation structure is no longer attracting physicians whose specific identities - determined by geography, specialty, mode and setting of practice, and several other variables - are being better represented by other groups.