APA Member Rahn K. Bailey, M.D., FAPA Named President-Elect of the National Medical Association
ARLINGTON, Va. (Aug. 2, 2011) – Rahn K. Bailey, a long-time active member and Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, was voted President-Elect of the National Medical Association during the NMA Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly in late July. He will be only the third psychiatrist to serve as president of the National Medical Association, which represents more than 30,000 African American physicians. Dr. Bailey, a dual board-certified forensic psychiatrist, is the Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Meharry Medical College School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Bailey is a national forensic expert who has testified and participated in civil, racial discrimination, and criminal cases. "Dr. Bailey has exhibited tremendous leadership in his roles as a forensic psychiatrist, disaster psychiatrist, medical educator and administrator. It is exciting to know that Dr. Bailey is joining other psychiatrists elected to key leadership roles in organized medicine. He will be only the third psychiatrist to ascend to the presidency of the NMA," said Annelle B. Primm, M.D., M.P.H., deputy medical director of the APA. Bailey served as Psychiatry Section Chairman of the NMA from 2003-2006 and served as the Speaker of the NMA House of Delegates from 2009 to 2011. He was the Chairperson for the Katrina Response Effort of the NMA and led teams of physicians in treating the mental health needs of those displaced by the hurricanes. He also worked with NMA to provide care to Haitians after the 2010 earthquake. Bailey has served leadership roles in several committees of the American Psychiatric Association, including the Council on Psychiatry and the Law, the Assembly Committee of Representatives of Minority/Underrepresented Groups and the Caucus of Black Psychiatrists. He is also a member of the Administrative Council of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law (AAPL). The National Medical Association is a national professional and scientific organization representing the interests of more than 30,000 African American physicians and the patients they serve.

Mark A. Lawrence, M.D. Murdered by Patient
The American Psychiatric Association is saddened and shocked at the murder of psychiatrist Mark A. Lawrence, M.D. of McLean, Virginia, by a patient who then killed herself. Our hearts are with the families affected by this tragedy. APA President, Dr. John Oldham, M.D. has recently written about mental illness and violence in a letter to the editor published in the New York Times and in the President's column in the July 15 issue of Psychiatric News.

Alvin Golub, advocacy group leader, dies

Proposed Changes to CMS e-Prescribing (eRX) Program
Currently providers must submit 10 electronic prescriptions to Medicare by the end of the month or receive a 1% penalty in 2012.Proposed changes by CMS would exempt physicians who take the following actions: Register for an EHR incentive program; AND Adopt a certified EHR by October 1, 2011. See full document.

Call for Abstracts

The Conference Organizing Committee invites submission abstracts for presentation at PSV's. Abstracts must be complete in all components and submitted by August 15, 2011.

PSYCHIATRIC SOCIETY OF VIRGINIA 2011 FALL MEETING
September 23-24, 2011 Wintergreen Resort
Wintergreen, VA
CLICK HERE to visit PSV's website for abstract submission instructions.
Questions? Contact Andrew Mann at andrew@societyhq.com

WPS Board Transition Dinner
Maggiano's Restaurant
June 13, 2011

Outgoing President Elizabeth Morrison presents Judith A. Nowak, outgoing newsletter editor, with an engraved pewter bowl. Dr. Nowak served as editor from 1995 until she retired in Spring of 2011.
At the Transition Dinner the CME Committee received special recognition for their outstanding work during the last year. Shown here are CME Staff Liaison Chris Cotter, Committee Member Jessica Brown and CME Chair Molly Strauss.	Judith Nowak, outgoing Newsletter Editor, shows her bowl to Catherine May, Ethics Chair.

2011 President's Event Photos- March 19, 2011

MENTAL HEALTH: CLARITY, LOST
The Richmond Times Dispatch Editorial
Evidence continues to accumulate that the moment of clarity the commonwealth experienced in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre has not had a lasting or sufficient effect. The state's treatment of the mentally ill is, at times, an oxymoron: There is no treatment. The latest indication comes from a report by the Inspector General for Behavioral Health and Development. It says about 200 mentally ill persons who represented a danger to themselves or others were turned away from psychiatric facilities across the state, in a practice common enough to have its own term: streeting. This follows the news in March that mental-health units in Virginia have had to send patients to far-off hospitals elsewhere: One Northern Virginia facility, for example, had to cast as far afield as Petersburg to find beds for patients. The General Assembly provided stopgap funding to keep a shortage of acute-admissions beds for persons in serious crisis from getting worse, but those funds are now running out. That news followed the Kaine administration's dubious decision to shut down a children's mental-health hospital in Staunton. Kaine was governor during the Virginia Tech tragedy. He is now running for Jim Webb's Senate seat. To prove himself worthy of it, he owes the public a fuller explanation as to why his legacy has not lived up to the lofty words he offered in the wake of the massacre. Gov. Bob McDonnell, who was attorney general when the attack took place, also has not given care for the mental health the prominence it merits. The governors, along with members of the General Assembly, may argue that their plates have groaned under the weight of everything from economic crisis to natural disasters. No one would disagree that state leaders have good reasons for ignoring the issue. They always do - which is why tragedies happen.

APA Medical Director, Melvin Sabshin M.D., Remembered as Leader
ARLINGTON, Va. (June 6, 2011)—The American Psychiatric Association remembered former APA medical director, Melvin Sabshin, M.D., who led the APA for nearly a quarter century from 1974 to 1997. Dr. Sabshin passed away on Saturday at the age of 85. "Dr. Sabshin’s exemplary leadership helped to shape a new American psychiatry at a time of great change. His substantial skills and vision greatly enhanced the APA, leaving it much larger and stronger," said James H. Scully Jr., the APA’s current Medical Director and CEO. Sabshin’s accomplishments during his tenure at APA were numerous and far-reaching. His years at APA included publication of new editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; creation of the American Psychiatric Press, Inc.; development of practice guidelines; and strengthening research, advocacy, education, and public affairs. Sabshin also increased the organization's international involvement, including working with the World Psychiatric Association and others to help end the use of psychiatry to suppress political dissent in the Soviet Union and other parts of the world."Dr. Sabshin was an esteemed leader, an intellectual catalyst, and a consummate diplomat who was central to the evolution of American psychiatry," said APA President John M. Oldham, M.D. "As medical director of the American Psychiatric Association from 1974 to 1997, Dr. Sabshin understood that psychiatry, as a profession, needed a new direction, resolved to be part of the change, and succeeded." Sabshin completed high school at age 14 and undergraduate study at the age of 17. After brief service in the U.S. Army, he completed medical school and residency at Tulane University. He then took a position at the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago and in 1961 became the head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois College Medicine. During this time he became active in the APA and was elected to the Board of Trustees; and in 1974 he became the medical director of the APA. Upon his retirement from APA, he took a position as clinical professor of psychiatry with the University of Maryland and lived much of the year in London with his British wife, where he was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He remained active in the APA, attending Annual Meetings throughout his retirement. Sabshin was an author of dozens of scientific articles and author or co-author of 7 books, including his latest in 2008, Changing American Psychiatry: a Personal Perspective, in which he describes changes in psychiatry in the post WWII era and later and offers his insights into the process. Dr. Sabshin is survived by his wife, Marion Bennathan, his son, James Sabshin, MD, and 4 granddaughters.

REPORT: VIRGINIA FAILING TO PROTECT MENTALLY ILL
NEWPORT NEWS - About 200 mentally ill Virginians who posed a threat to themselves or others were turned away from psychiatric facilities over the past year, according to a new state report. The report by the state Office of Inspector General for Behavioral Health and Developmental Services says the practice, known as "streeting," appears to be most prevalent in Hampton Roads but occurs statewide. "Streeting represents a failure of the Commonwealth's public sector safety net system to serve Virginia's most vulnerable citizens and places these individuals, their families and the public at risk," Inspector General G. Douglas Bevalacqua wrote in the report, issued Tuesday. The inspector general prepares a report on the state's mental health system twice a year for the governor and the General Assembly. The report for the six months ending March 31 was the first to mention streeting - a term that the office of inspector general said it first heard while looking into the impact of cuts at Eastern State Hospital last year. According to the report, between April 2010 and March 2011 eight of nine Community Service Boards in Hampton Roads acknowledged that individuals who met criteria for a temporary detention order were released from custody because no psychiatric facility was willing to admit them.

"We will monitor this issue going forward and make recommendations to end this questionable and dangerous practice, and hope that one day the term streeting will pass from the lexicon of Virginia's behavioral health system," the inspector general wrote. Chuck Hall, executive director of the Hampton-Newport News Community Services Board, said that CSBs usually follow up with patients who are turned away, and the vast majority of those who need treatment get it. "One day we may in Hampton Roads have a terrible situation where someone dies or injures or kills someone else, but so far we've been able to manage with our limited capacity successfully," Hall said. The inspector general also expressed concern about the Virginia attorney general's interpretation of a federal regulation dealing with the use of restraint to medicate over a patient's objection. The attorney general says a patient can be restrained only to ensure the immediate physical safety of the patient or others. That interpretation in some cases "will allow a person's psychosis to deepen," the report says. The inspector general has petitioned the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to review the issue and determine whether restraint can be used to administer medication to a patient unable to make informed decisions even if physical safety is not endangered

Headlines from Custom Briefings from the American Psychiatric Association

AMA STATEMENT ON PROPOSED MEDICARE ACO RULE
Federal officials today released for public comment the preliminary rules governing accountable care organizations (ACOs). In response, the American Medical Association issued the attached statement.

WPS Annual Meeting and Awards Reception Photos

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