Spring Edition, 2018
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Spring edition, 2018 Newsletter Editor: Shannon Suo Volume 7, Issue 1 President’s Message Roberto Lewis-Fernández February, 2018 It is with mixed emotions that I write my last Newsletter message as president of SSPC. I am very proud of our accomplishments as an organization over the 2018 Annual last few years. My work has been very fulfilling and I have learned a lot about Meeting the field, about organizations, and about leadership. I will miss the job. At the same time, I feel excited that a new crop of officers will take over the leadership What does with renewed impetus and innovative ideas for SSPC. And, happily, I will still culture mean? be able to continue being involved in my role as past president. I imagine past Evolving presidents are like grandparents: able to give advice and pitch in when needed, definitions in but not in charge and needing sometimes to be unheeded for new things to mental health occur. service, training, and research The main goal of my presidency has been to increase the impact of SSPC on our own field of cultural psychiatry, on cultural mental health studies more San Diego, CA generally, including our colleagues in other cultural mental health disciplines, and on psychiatry as a whole. I believe we have taken some strides in that April 19-21, direction. Attendance at the Annual Meeting has increased impressively, as 2018 have the number of abstracts we consistently receive. From an organization that fielded a single set of plenary talks per meeting, we now regularly offer 4 Prices go up high-quality sessions concurrently. Our poster sessions have grown April 1, no substantially, giving younger members a first chance to present. In addition, we foolin’! now offer regular webinars frequently keyed to cutting-edge themes such as migration and the global refugee crisis. Hundreds of people all over the world Register now! have taken advantage of these offerings. We are also developing a set of web- based resources that will form a kind of Cultural Psychiatry 101 to supplement Contents the training and educational activities that psychiatry residents and other trainees in our field receive. Our website is now a work of art, publicizing and President ‘s 1- enabling access to these initiatives as well as acting as a nerve center to link us all. And, through all of these changes, this Newsletter has continued to provide message 2 us with updates and useful information. Executive 2 Most of these achievements started or gained momentum under the presidency Director’s of Steven Wolin, who gave me much useful advice as past president, and they message have been the work of many. The Program Committee, most recently chaired by Bonnie Kaiser, has worked very hard to put together excellent annual Hotel 2 meeting programs. The Education and Training Committee, under the able information leadership of Kenneth Fung (incoming President), has developed the whole concept of webinars and their content. The Communications Committee, with Election 3- the incredible talent of Connie Cummings behind it, has grown the website into results 4 its present stature. Artha Gillis, our Treasurer, has been a diligent and sound Meet Kenneth 5- steward. Francis Lu, as Secretary, has kept us informed and publicized SSPC activities to the winds. The work of so many others, including Shannon Suo on Fung 6 the Newsletter, has really pushed the organization forward. Most importantly, I San Diego 6 want to recognize the contribution of Liz Kramer, who has been a consigliere to me and several of my predecessors, and the keeper and implementer of the Award 7- master calendar; she is the heart of the SSPC tradition. Winners 8 Contact us 9 Continued, page 2 Spring edition, 2018 Page 2 President’s Message, continued from page 1 Roberto Lewis-Fernández With these accomplishments, we still have a lot to work on. Ours remains a boutique tradition within psychiatry. It has become a bigger boutique by far, but we remain somewhat to the side of major developments. Improving our impact on every aspect of mental health care, research, administration, advocacy, and policymaking should continue to be a major goal. For this, influencing the next generation of professionals is indispensable. Our meetings and webinars are doing an excellent job. We also need to continue to explore other options, such as the initial work on networking and mentoring that Auralyd Padilla, Artha, and others have started. For example, is there room under our tent for explicit forays into advocacy? Or more work on influencing policy makers or large service providers? Can we put together an SSPC White Paper on the state of the field, or the directions for future development? I look forward to more discussions and debates about our role as an organization. Finally, I want to thank everyone who helped me perform my duties as president. Your guidance and criticism was most welcome and helped me grow in my role. I retire from my leadership role excited about the future of SSPC. Executive Director’s Message Liz Kramer Here we are again with the annual meeting issue. This year there's a lot happening at SSPC. Rather than write a long column the news items in this issue will tell you about many of them. All, of course, will take place in San Joan B. Kroc Institute Diego at the beautiful Joan Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice. I urge you to for Peace and come and attend sessions, enjoy the reception, see old friends and make new Justice, San Diego ones. We've got 3 packed days with lots of great choices for each time block, sandiego.edu website as you will see from the program. Be sure to come to the business meeting. That's when the new officers and Board members will be installed, and the awards will be given. We even have a special lunch that day. There's lots to do in Old Town on your free night and if you're coming early or staying over for the weekend don't miss the San Diego zoo. There's an article by Jim Jaranson about things to do in this issue. Sign up now, you won't regret it. And if you want to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn, where we have a block of rooms reserved at the special rate of $159 plus tax, be sure to book your room by February 16. The hotel will not guarantee the price after that date. Their telephone number is (619) 260-0607 and you can reserve at http://hiltongardeninn.hilton.com/en/gi/groups/personalized/S/ SANSWGI-SP2-20180416/index.jhtml?WT.mc_id=POG. We're available if you have questions so don't hesitate to ask. Looking forward to seeing you in San Diego! Volume 7, Issue 1 Page 3 Changing of the Guard SSPC welcomes new officers and board members SSPC has new officers and three new Board members who were elected in December. They will be installed during our annual business meeting in San Diego. All will serve for three years. Our new president is Kenneth Fung, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and Clinical Director of the Asian Initiative in Mental Health at Toronto Western Hospital.(see feature story on p.5) He will replace outgoing president, Roberto Lewis-Fernández who will become immediate past San Diego skyline president. Our new Vice President/President-elect is Jim Griffith from George visitcalifornia.com website Washington University, who succeeds Kenneth in that role. Steven Wolin, our immediate past president will retire from the Board. Bonnie Kaiser will replace Francis Lu, who has served as secretary for seven years, and Alan Teo will be our new treasurer, replacing Artha Gillis. Our new Board members are Vincenzo Di Nicola, Anna Fiskin and Sylvanna Vargas, who were elected for three year terms, and Jim Jaranson, who was appointed by Roberto to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Sergio Villaseñor Bayardo. Retiring Board members are Auryald (Lala) Padilla and Ramaswamy Viswanathan (Vis). We welcome and congratulate our new officers and members and thank our outgoing ones for their service to the organization. About the Officers and Board James Griffith, Vice-President/President-Elect Griff is the Leon M. Yochelson Professor and Chair of the George Washington University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Under his leadership, GWU Psychiatry has gained broad recognition for its commitment to humanistic psychiatry and excellence of its research and training programs in cultural psychiatry, global mental health, mental health policy, human rights advocacy, and psychosocial care for medically ill patients. Bonnie Kaiser, Secretary Bonnie is a medical anthropologist and epidemiologist whose research focuses on psychological anthropology and global mental health. She is a post-doctoral scholar at the Duke Global Health Institute. She conducts ongoing research and has designed and conducted evaluations on mental health services in Click here Haiti. Previous publications from her work in Haiti have focused on idioms of distress and mental health communication, development and testing of to register transcultural screening tools, development of training programs, and treatment for the resources and decision- making. She also has worked in Kenya and Nepal. Bonnie is passionate about teaching and mentoring and has advised 2018 numerous students and professionals from Haiti, Nepal, and the US and led numerous student groups conducting global mental health field research. She Annual received the SSPC Charles Hughes Memorial Fellowship, has served on the Board, and she has been a member of the SSPC Hughes and Spiegel Meeting Fellowship Committee for the past four years. She also has served on the annual program committee and is chair of that committee since 2017.