Psychiatrist Assumes IMG Leadership Role in AMA

Psychiatrist Vijaya Appareddy, M.D., is the incoming chair of the AMA's International Medical Graduate (IMG) Governing Council. (She is also a member of APA’s Council on Children, Adolescents, and Their Families.) Appareddy is representative of the changing face of the AMA, which has reached out in recent years to residents and medical students, women and minorities, and international medical graduates. And she is representative of the strength of the psychiatric delegation in the AMA, which this week will inaugurate psychiatrist Jeremy Lazarus, M.D., as AMA president.

Last year, Appareddy was instrumental in passage of a report by the AMA Council on Medical Service calling on the AMA to support a simplified process for designating individuals with intellectual disabilities as a medically underserved group (see Psychiatric News here).

At this year’s meeting, which began Saturday, Appareddy talked to Psychiatric News about the IMG Governing Council and how it serves international medical graduates and the wider physician community and encouraged psychiatrists—whether IMG or not—to join the AMA. Watch the video here.

(Image and video: Mark Moran)