APA Announces Results of 2022 Election

At its meeting on February 14, APA’s Committee of Tellers approved the following results for the 2022 APA National Election. Please note that these results are considered public but not official until approved by the Board of Trustees at its meeting on March 12 and 13.

President-Elect
Petros Levounis, M.D., M.A.

Treasurer
Richard F. Summers, M.D.

Trustee-at-Large
Michele Reid, M.D.

Area 3 Trustee
Geetha Jayaram, M.B.B.S., M.B.A.

Area 6 Trustee
Barbara Yates Weissman, M.D.

Resident-Fellow Member Trustee-Elect
Seth L. Daly Stennis, M.D.

“I am honored and grateful to have been elected by my fellow members to help lead the APA,” Levounis said in a media release. “I look forward to helping build APA’s leadership role in mental health both within American medicine and in collaboration with our colleagues across the world.”

“Congratulations to Dr. Levounis and the other candidates on their election,” said APA President Vivian Pender, M.D. “I look forward to working with these enthusiastic and dedicated newly elected APA leaders in the coming years to advance the important efforts of the APA and its members.”

“Dr. Levounis’ leadership and commitment will greatly benefit the APA,” said APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A. “APA members and the profession of psychiatry will be well served by his guidance and leadership. I also want to personally congratulate all the winners and to salute the other candidates.”

Levounis’ term as president-elect of APA will begin in May at the conclusion of the APA Annual Meeting, when current President-Elect Rebecca Brendel, M.D., J.D., begins her one-year term as president. The other winners will also take office at that time.

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Impact of Racism Across Generations Discussed at APA Town Hall

The adverse effects of structural and interpersonal racism persist across generations, said panelists last night in the third online town hall meeting hosted by APA’s Presidential Task Force to Address Structural Racism Throughout Psychiatry.

“This is a period of turbulence in our country, and we are all being forced to confront the disparities in the treatment of Black, indigenous, and people of color,” said moderator, task force member, and APA Trustee-at-Large Michele Reid, M.D. She is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University in Detroit and the chief medical officer of CNS Healthcare. “The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted long-standing inequities caused by race, ethnicity, and income.”

Chuan-Mei Lee, M.D., an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and a child and adolescent psychiatrist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, spoke about the long-term, epigenetic effects of adverse childhood events (ACEs) that may occur as the result of structural and interpersonal racism.

“Experiences of discrimination produce the type of chronic stress that increases allostatic load, sets off cortisol production, shortens telomeres, and methlylates DNA,” Lee explained.

Ebony Dix, M.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine and an inpatient geriatric psychiatrist, discussed how structural racism affects Black adults on a daily basis. She cited differential treatment of patients in the emergency department due to their race, as an example.

“Take an African-American male who is 50 years old and a white female who is 50 years old presenting to the same ED with the same psychotic symptoms,” Dix said. “I’ve seen time and time again that the full … work-up will be given to the white woman, but for the Black man the first things at the top of the differential is substance abuse or schizophrenia.”

Peter Ureste, M.D., an assistant clinical professor in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, discussed how structural racism affects Latinx and LGBTQ populations, including transgender people of color.

“Transgender and gender nonconforming individuals face extraordinarily high rates of social and health inequalities, including poverty and discrimination by employers. They are [more likely to be] victims of violence, and they face higher rates of family rejection and homelessness than their cisgender peers. I would say this is even more so for transgender people of color,” Ureste said.

At the end of the discussions, Reid gave an update on the task force’s work. Highlights include the following:

• A website resource, psychiatry.org/TaskForce, that offers a recommended reading list, educational content, and a glossary of terms approved by the APA Board of Trustees.
• Three mini-surveys issued to guide the task force’s work and engage APA’s membership.
• A report by the task force’s Assembly work group that outlined eight actions to improve diversity and inclusion and reduce structural racism in the Assembly, actions that have since been approved by the Board of Trustees.
• Feedback sessions with APA councils and committees.
• Presentations made at the Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, and Virginia district branches.

The next town hall will take place on February 8, 2021, from 8 to 9:30 p.m. ET.

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APA Announces Results of 2020 Election

APA’s Committee of Tellers has approved the following results of APA’s 2020 national election. Please note that these results are considered public but not official until approved by the Board of Trustees at its meeting on March 14 and 15 in Washington, D.C.




President-elect
Vivian B. Pender, M.D.

Treasurer
Richard F. Summers, M.D.

Trustee-At-Large
Michele Reid, M.D.

Area 2 Trustee
Glenn A. Martin, M.D.

Area 5 Trustee
Jenny Boyer, M.D., Ph.D., J.D.

Resident-Fellow Member Trustee-elect
Sanya Virani, M.D., M.P.H.

“I congratulate Dr. Pender and all of today’s successful candidates on their election,” said APA President Bruce Schwartz, M.D. “I look forward to collaborating with them as APA works to improve access to and quality of mental health care for all.”

Pender’s term as APA president-elect will begin this April at the conclusion of the APA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, when current President-elect Jeffrey Geller, M.D., M.P.H., begins his one-year term as president.

“APA members and the profession of psychiatry will be well served by the leadership of Dr. Pender,” said APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A. “I have known her for years, and her dedication and passion for psychiatry will greatly benefit APA during her tenure.”

Complete results of the election will be reported in the March 6 issue of Psychiatric News.

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