Talking With Patients About End of Life and More From APA’s 2016 Annual Meeting

Highlights from Day Three

Our coverage of APA’s Annual Meeting continues with reflections on the role of end-of-life care discussions with patients, a former U.S. surgeon general’s commitment to improving mental health care for all, and how to avoid serious professional boundary violations.

Gawande Urges M.D.s to Talk to Patients About End-of-Life Goals People have goals in life other than living longer, and they should be prompted to talk about them, advised noted surgeon and author Atul Gawande, M.D., M.P.H., at the Opening Session of APA’s 2016 Annual Meeting. Read More >

APA Honors Former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D. Former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., received APA’s 2016 Human Rights Award at APA’s Annual Meeting today. He was honored for his work highlighting the importance of mental health when he was the U.S. surgeon general as well as his work as founding director and senior advisor of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse University. Read More >

Incoming APA President Discusses Initiatives for Coming Year Incoming APA President Maria Oquendo, M.D., describes how she would like to strengthen APA’s partnerships with other specialty groups in medicine and build an international psychiatric research network. She is interviewed by Psychiatric News Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D., at APA’s 2106 Annual Meeting. Watch Video >

Clinicians Need to Be Sensitive to Patient-Doctor Boundaries, Says Gabbard Glen Gabbard, M.D., discusses his 30 years of experience in treating, evaluating, and consulting on cases of serious professional boundary violations, both sexual and nonsexual. Read More >

Richard Kogan, M.D., on Scott Joplin and Ragtime Psychiatrist and concert pianist Richard Kogan, M.D., explains the origin of ragtime and the psychiatric hospitalization of Scott Joplin and illustrates his lecture with examples of Joplin’s work. Watch Video >

Treating Depression in Youth Requires Systematic Approach, Says Expert Diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment of children and adolescents with depression require subtle but significant shifts in thinking compared with adults, according to Karen Dineen Wagner, M.D., Ph.D., a professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston. Read More >

Winners of Assembly Election Announced Assembly members select their next speaker-elect and recorder. Read More >

The Americas Must Continue Move to Community-Based Mental Health Services

“The [mental health] treatment gap is the great challenge we face today,” said Jorge Rodriguez, M.D., Ph.D., unit chief for Mental Health and Substance Use at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington.

Tearing down barriers to access to services should come as part of universal health coverage and include the integration of mental health into general health services, and not in some parallel track, said Rodriguez, recounting provisions of PAHO’s strategic plan for 2014-2019 at a symposium today at PAHO headquarters on World Mental Health Day. Meeting that challenge will require cooperation by governments, health professionals, families and consumers.

However, in 20 of the 27 countries in North and South America with psychiatric hospitals, more than 50% of the mental health budget still goes to those institutions rather than to community-based systems, he said.

“We need a new vision of research, policy, clinical services, and education,” added Eliot Sorel, M.D., a clinical professor of global health, health services management and leadership and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University, who helped organize the program. “Primary care physicians, pediatricians, and public-health people must be our allies. It is a shared responsibility.”

For more in Psychiatric News about international mental health, see: “WHO Report Emphasizes Need to Make Suicide Prevention a Global Priority.”

 (Image: Aaron Levin)