April 16, 1999

Three APA district branches and one state association will soon receive considerable financial help from APA's national office to help them gear up for education efforts and, in some cases, battles with their state legislatures concerning issues likely to have a substantial impact on the practice of psychiatry.

The APA Board of Trustees voted at its March 13-14 meeting in Chicago to approve appropriations ranging from $15,000 to $36,000 for these initiatives. The money will come from the Fund to Support District Branch Initiatives of National Significance.

The largest allocation will go to the California Psychiatric Association's government relations program to greatly increase interactions between psychiatrists and state lawmakers. The program is in its second year, and the APA funds will be used to support an "outreach coordinator" who will boost the number and sites of contacts with key legislators.

The Louisiana Psychiatric Medical Association will receive $30,000 to inform and educate its members about proposed legislation that would expand the scope of practice and include prescribing privileges for nonphysicians in the state. The district branch is working with the Louisiana Medical Association on this education effort.

Another district branch that will benefit from the fund is the Alaska Psychiatric Society, which will receive $15,000 to educate state lawmakers about the consequences of proposed laws that would grant prescribing privileges to psychologists.

The Maryland Psychiatric Society won Board approval for a $25,000 grant to develop a public relations campaign and increase staff to educate its members and others about a nurse psychotherapist prescribing bill that has been introduced for the fifth time in the state legislature.

The Board began this district branch assistance fund in 1997 with $250,000.

The Board also voted to make some former APA members an offer it hopes they can't refuse.

Former members who resigned from the Association without paying their dues or were dropped for nonpayment of yearly dues prior to 1998 will soon have an opportunity to be reinstated without paying their dues for the intervening years.

Under the one-time dues amnesty program, which was developed by the APA Membership Committee and will take place in 2000, former members would be able to rejoin once they paid a full year's worth of APA and district branch dues in advance and agree that they would be ineligible for any future dues amnesty program APA might offer.

Each district branch will decide whether to participate in the amnesty program. In those district branches that decline to do so, former members who are in arrears would still have to pay all back district branch dues to be reinstated, since psychiatrists cannot become APA members without also joining their local district branch.

APA's Membership Office has already provided district branches with lists of former members who are eligible to rejoin under the amnesty program, noted Membership Committee Chair Bernard Katz, M.D.

Katz also updated the Trustees on the states of APA's new international member category. He noted that as of March 1, 836 psychiatrists had joined under this category, 440 of whom were joining for the first time and 396 of whom were in the now-defunct category of corresponding member.

The Trustees also acted on dozens of proposals for streamlining the Association's governance and component structures to make them more efficient and more responsive. Several of these involved sunsetting components, reducing the size of committees, and shortening the time members can serve on a component

Among these actions, Board members voted to:

• continue allowing past APA presidents to have a vote on the Board and their meeting expenses paid for three years after their presidential term ends. If an ex-president wants to attend Board meetings after the three-year period, it will be at his or her own expense, as is the case with any APA member. The current policy is that former presidents have a vote for three years after they complete their term, but they remain nonvoting members of the Board for life and APA pays their expenses for any Board meeting they choose to attend.

  This change will amend the APA Constitution and Bylaws and will thus require a vote by the membership. The change will apply only to presidents elected after the proposal is approved. A proposal to have all former presidents covered by the new rule failed by a 12 to 6 vote.




• refer to the Council on National Affairs (soon to be renamed the Council on Professional Values and Human Dignity) a proposal to increase the Board's diversity by converting one of its three trustee-at-large seats to a minority trustee seat.

  Board members were divided over the merits of the idea, with several members agreeing with Gloria Pitts, M.D., representative of APA's Committee of Black Psychiatrists, that this could "marginalize" minority psychiatrists because their position would come to be viewed as somewhat different from others on the Board and could lead to infighting among the seven minority/underrepresented groups. Others were concerned that this would decrease minority psychiatrists' opportunities to win election to other seats. Proponents argued, however, that there has long been a paucity of Trustees from various minority and underrepresented groups, and this would ensure that at least one such psychiatrist would have a vote on the Board. The council is to report back to the Board at its October meeting.




• endorse an Assembly action paper, later approved by the Committee on Constitution and Bylaws, that will allow the Board's member-in-training trustee-elect position to be elected solely by APA members-in-training (MITs). The candidates are now voted on by the entire membership. Trustees also voted to allow MITs to nominate a candidate for this seat via petition signed by at least 100 MITs. These changes require an amendment to the Constitution and Bylaws and will be placed on next year's election ballot.



• back a proposal that in the 2000 election the trustee-at-large seat be limited to early career psychiatrist (ECP) candidates. The Nominating Committee would nominate onlyECPs for the position that year. Each year, one of the three at-large seats is up for election. The Board can direct the committee to limit nominations to ECP candidates, which would eliminate the need to first put the matter to a membership vote.



• continue to seat a representative of the Committee of Black Psychiatrists on the Board. This representative does not have a vote and is the only minority-group delegate with a designated seat on the Board.



• agree "in principle" to reorganize the Council on Economic Affairs into two new components, the Council on Health Care Systems and Financing and the Council on Quality Improvement.



• establish a new committee on district branch relations that will report directly to the Board.



• create a task force that will recommend a strategy APA can use to enhance its relationships with the business community.



• establish a new component, the Committee on End of Life Issues, which combines the work of the Subcommittee on Psychiatric Aspects of Life-Sustaining Technology and the Work Group to Educate Members on Physician-Assisted Suicide.