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At the Opening Session of APA's 1998 annual meeting, incoming APA President Rodrigo Muņoz, M.D., proved himself to be an atypical politician by denouncing hyperbolic pledges.
"Today I want to be short on promises," he professed. "Next year I want to be long in accomplishments."
In response to remarks by outgoing APA President Herbert S. Sacks, M.D., Muņoz said that he plans to devote much of his presidential term to initiatives that will bring the revolutionary advances in psychiatric research and the neurosciences into the clinician's treatment armamentarium.
"Powerful technologies in neurochemistry, imaging, and genetic studies are demonstrating what we already knew: the brain is the organ of psychiatry," he said.
Muņoz, who became APA president at the conclusion of the annual meeting, commented that psychiatry is now "positioned to gain back our future." Recent victories in the passage of parity and managed care regulatory legislation, as well as the increasing public outcry against the excesses of managed care, demonstrate that psych-iatry's future and its ability to deliver care to those in need has turned the corner and is once again infused with hope.
Noting that much of his career has been directed to the care of the poor, the homeless, and the chronically mentally ill, Muņoz said that his close associates in this work have been those who shared his belief in the social mission of psychiatry, among them minority, women, and gay and lesbian psychiatrists.
Believing in this mission, he said, "demands that we give the best to those who have the least. I will continue our efforts with the support of child and adolescent psychiatrists, geriatric psychiatrists, psychiatrists working in veterans facilities, rural and prison psychiatrists, and the many colleagues who protect the tenets of community psychiatry."
Another important front on which Muņoz plans to devote energy is to APA as an organization. Various APA members are already working on devising a strategic plan for APA, improved budgeting procedures, and a reorganization of APA offices and functions that will be more cost-effective and member friendly.
These moves should result in improved communication between the national and local APA offices and its members, better use of limited resources, and more services for members.
"We are well on our way to becoming the best run, best integrated professional organization in America," he announced.
Muņoz plans to be a visible leader on the managed care scene, representing the best interests of both psychiatrists and their patients. He said he would do his best to create the opportunity to talk directly with the business community and emphasize the message that health care decisions should be made by physicians and their patients.
"These are unusual times," Muņoz concluded. "Exceptional problems require extraordinary solutions. APA members have voted into office a Board of Trustees that is ready to formulate such solutions. I am here asking the APA officers and trustees, the APA Assembly, and the APA components to join our forward-looking medical director and me in the effort to reinvent our cherished American Psychiatric Association."-C.F.B.