New York Hosts American Psychiatric Association Meeting

Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, rounds out his year-long term as president of the American Psychiatric Association by hosting the group’s annual meeting at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in midtown Manhattan. Dr. Lieberman will preside over a meeting that features presentations by many Columbia faculty—including a talk by CUMC EVP/Dean Lee Goldman—and an address by Vice President Joe Biden.

The May 3–7 meeting, the world’s largest gathering of psychiatrists, will focus on the integration of behavioral health and primary care; the meeting theme is “Changing the Practice and Perception of Psychiatry.”

“Forty percent of patients seek behavioral health care in primary care,” says Dr. Lieberman. “This is a natural area of collaboration between psychiatrists and other physicians, particularly primary care. Behavioral health is an integral part of overall health.”

The opening session of the meeting will be followed by a special dialogue on science, psychiatry, and media, featuring Dr. Lieberman, Columbia University Professor and Nobel laureate Eric R. Kandel, and actor/activist Alan Alda.

The meeting will offer more than 50 presentations in an integrated-care track that covers the full spectrum of collaboration presented by experts from across the field. Philip R. Muskin, MD, professor of psychiatry at P&S, is program chair for the meeting.

A sampling of other P&S faculty who will participate in the meeting:

• Franklin Schneier, MD, professor of psychiatry, will lead a symposium on “Getting to the Core of Anxiety: Update on Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” • Deborah Hasin, PhD, professor of epidemiology (in psychiatry), will lead a symposium on “Combining Abuse and Dependence into a Single Disorder for Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use Disorders as well as Substance-Induced Psychiatric Disorders in DSM-5.” • Catherine Monk, PhD, associate professor of medical psychology (in psychiatry and obstetrics & gynecology), will lead a session on “Maternal/Fetal Interactions: Neurobehavioral Development Before Birth.” • Paul Appelbaum, MD, the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Law and director of the Division of Law, Ethics and Psychiatry, will lead a workshop on “Psychiatry in the Courts: APA Confronts Legal Issues of Concern to the Field APA Committee on Judicial Action.” • Frances Levin, MD, the Kennedy-Leavy Professor of Psychiatry in the Division of Substance Abuse, will lead a symposium on “Choosing Treatment for Cannabis Use Disorder.” • Margaret Spinelli, MD, associate professor of clinical psychiatry, will deliver the Alexandra Saymonds Awards Lecture, “Postpartum Psychosis and Infanticide: Psychiatric and Legal Perspectives on Mothers Who Kill.”

The full program for the meeting is available here.

Dr. Lieberman, chair of psychiatry at Columbia, psychiatrist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia, and director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, was chosen president-elect of the APA in 2012 and began his term as president in May 2013.