Annual dues. The APA is a great organization that should continue to re-invent itself and re-engineer its procedures and business practices to generate additional revenue streams that could help reduce its annual dues. I know many members who complain about the APA dues, and former members who dropped out because of what they consider to be high dues. I try to remind them that the dues are on average a modest .3% to .5% of a psychiatrist’s annual income, and that all of us must unite within our association in order to have the collective power to achieve our goals and solve our challenges.
Public education. The APA must intensify public education across all media platforms. This will help dispel myths, eliminate stigma, enforce parity, and portray psychiatry as a medical and scientific discipline. We have a great story to tell about how neurologic circuitry generates the mind and its mental functions, and the neurobiologic foundations of psychiatric brain disorders.
The APA should advocate for (and perhaps organize) an annual mental health check-up (online) in children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly for early detection and intervention.
Collaborative care. We should have close relationships with obstetricians to help prevent neurodevelopmental pathology due to perinatal complications as well as to manage depression in women in the pre- and postpartum phases. Collaborative care with pediatricians, family physicians, internists, and neurologists is necessary to integrate physical and mental health care for our patients, many of whom have multiple medical comorbidities and premature mortality.
Lobbying. The APA must intensify its lobbying to address the unacceptably high rate of suicide, addiction-related deaths, posttraumatic stress disorder due to trauma in children and adults, threats to mental health due to climate change and pollution, refugee mental health, stressful political zeitgeist, and the woefully high rate of uninsured or under-insured individuals.
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