Psychiatrists Elected to Influential AMA Posts

Patrice Harris, M.D.

 Jolene Butts Freeman

Two psychiatrists and APA members won election to key positions at the AMA on Tuesday. Patrice Harris, M.D., was elected to the AMA Board of Trustees in her first run for a Board seat, an unusual achievement at the AMA. She has served as a member of the AMA Women Physicians Congress and chaired the AMA Council on Legislation. She has also been president of the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association and was the founding president of that district branch's political action committee. She commented after learning of her election victory that her vision for the AMA "is physicians working together for a healthier future, a healthier practice environment, a healthier population, and a healthier collaboration with the federation of medicine."

Former APA President and Assembly Speaker John McIntyre, M.D., won election to a second term on the AMA's influential Council on Medical Service. That council develops and forwards to AMA's policymaking House of Delegates socioeconomic-related policies, such as those involving health care reform and access-to-care issues, that impact the practice of medicine. Harris and McIntyre add significantly to psychiatry's influence at the AMA, following closely on the heels of the election of psychiatrist Jeremy Lazarus, M.D., as AMA president-elect.

Read more about Harris and McIntyre in Psychiatric News at http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/10/8.2.full and http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/10/8.3.full.