Preparing APA for Next Millennium By Rodrigo Muņoz, M.D. APA President

APA is about to enter a new and exciting phase: It will retool itself into an organization that will more effectively help the mentally ill in the years to come and be more responsive to members' changing needs.

As with most medical organizations, APA has experienced a naturalistic growth; structures have emerged in response to perceived needs and new challenges. For the most part, this development has gone unchecked, reaching a point where the organization has become cumbersome, and communication between members and the leadership has suffered. To address these problems, we have gone back to the drawing board and attempted to sketch structural plans for the future. This year we are going to go from planning to implementation.

Dr. Dale Walker and his Task Force on Strategic Planning, working closely with the Board of Trustees, the Assembly, and key components, are preparing the blueprints for APA's new organizational structure. The final plan will be based on the study and recommendations of a number of groups that have been hard at work for the past few years.

Our immediate past president, Dr. Herb Sacks, and the Board of Trustees laid the foundation for the current reorganization effort. He had also appointed a task force led by Dr. Jeremy Lazarus to come up with proposals that will increase the effectiveness of the Board of Trustees. The work of this group will be reported in time for implementation before the 1999 annual meeting.

The Council on Internal Organization, led by Fred Gottlieb, M.D., is working on the integration and coordination of component activities so that these activities benefit the entire organization while reducing duplication of effort and expense. Many APA components-whether a council or a committee-engage in educational, research, government relations, and public affairs activities, but historically each has operated within its own limited sphere with little coordination with other components.

The Board liaison for the Council on Internal Organization is Dr. Paul Appelbaum, APA secretary. The consultant is Dr. Al Freedman, a former APA president and the leader of the "Key Conference" held in Key Biscayne, Fla., in 1974. This conference was one of the last times that APA attempted a large-scale strategic planning process. Other reorganization efforts were begun under APA presidents Dr. John Talbott and Dr. Mary Jane England.

Coordination, or better "triangulation," of the Board, Assembly, and components will be in the hands of Dr. Walker and Dr. Tom Pfaehler. Dr. Dan Borenstein, APA senior vice president, is coordinating with Dr. Maria Lymberis, APA treasurer, and Dr. Don Scherl, chair of the Budget Committee, a new strategy to assess financial implications of action items before they come to the Board of Trustees. This will not only help the Board better evaluate action items but also enable approved items to be implemented immediately.

A group including Dr. Allan Tasman, APA president-elect; Dr. Richard Harding, vice president; Jay Cutler, director of APA's Division of Government Relations; and John Blamphin, director of APA's Division of Public Affairs, has tackled the goal of integrating the activities of two of APA's most important components, the Joint Commission on Government Relations (JCGR) and Joint Commission on Public Affairs (JCPA). To oversee their work, I recently appointed Dr. Steve Mirin, APA medical director, and Dr. Steve Sharfstein, a former APA deputy medical director and vice president, to cochair a task force whose members include Dr. Ron Shellow, chair of the JCGR, and Dr. Nada Stotland, chair of the JCPA. One result so far has been the appointment of Dr. Sharfstein to serve as the vice chair of both commissions.

Dr. Mirin and I are pleased by the support offered by the many APA members and staff who are helping to forge a new image and a new structure for APA. If you have any comments about APA's reorganization, please contact me through e-mail at rmunozmd@aol.com or through my message center on my Web site at www.rmunozmd.com. You can also fax me at (619) 298-4782.