Division 55 National Leadership Award

Acceptance Speech

APA Convention 2007

Beth N. Rom-Rymer, Ph.D., FICPP

As we look toward the future and appreciate our present, it is important to take a moment to remember our past. What is it that brought us to this point?

For me, it was Victor De La Cancela and Jack Wiggins. Victor was a classmate of mine in our PPR training. It was he who first talked to me about the formation of Division 55.

Jack Wiggins, who has mentored so many psychologists throughout his prolific career, took an interest in me, for which I am forever grateful, and gave me abundant opportunities to expand my role in Div 55, first as Chair of the Pharmacotherapy Committee, then as Membership Chair, and then, nominating me for president, even when he knew that I had been very much occupied with caring for my Mom who had just suffered a major stroke.

As the fourth president of Div 55, in 2004, I was very cognizant of building on the strong foundation of the previous presidents: Jack Wiggins, Ron Fox, and Anita Brown.

As president, the initiatives that I found to be most significant were:

1. Creating the task force for the writing of the Practice Guidelines for RxP psychologists and appointing Bob McGrath as Chair. As of this Convention, the Guidelines have twice been thoroughly reviewed by CAPP/BEA and will hopefully be ready for a Council vote in 2008.
   
   
2. Creating the infrastructure for Division 55: establishing monthly Board meetings; establishing a working committee structure; developing the listserve as a forum on which people could reasonably discuss all issues pertinent to RxP; establishing the quarterly publication of our chief communication vehicle, The Tablet, with Dennis Girard as my appointed editor-in-chief.
   
   
3. Creating the First Annual Mid-Winter Conference, not only making it viable but financially profitable. What excited me most about the Conference was the:
   
   a. energy that was generated by our group of 85;
   
   b. the connections that people were making with each other;
   
   c. the training in psychopharm and the teaching of advocacy by example. I’ll never forget how exciting it was to hear Elaine LeVine, Mario Marquez, Anita Brown, and Elaine Mantell describe their first prescribing experiences!

Since my presidential year, I’ve been committed to:

1. Working on the Practice Guidelines as a task force member.
   
   
2. Representing the interests and expanding the network of Division 55 in APA Council including issues of training, credentialing, and the practice guidelines.
   
   
3. Continuing to expand the membership of Division 55. Owen Nichols has been a tremendous asset to our membership growth and has been a strong partner in this initiative.
   
   
4. Creating some new Div 55 committees, like the Media Committee, whose mission is to ascertain how RxP psychologists can most effectively use the media to raise awareness of the needs of the underserved and to demonstrate how psychologists can meet those needs. Nina Tocci is now chair of this Committee.
   
   
5. Bringing in psychologists, from the outside, with established expertise, to chair or co-chair committees. I brought in Merla Arnold, for example, a well-established expert in gerontology to co-chair the Geropharm Committee with me.
   
   
6. Chairing the committee to establish an ABPP for prescribing psychologists. I believe, wholeheartedly, in the establishment of an ABPP for prescribing psychologists. It is the gold standard in psychology. It will give us added credibility in front of state legislatures. It will give us standing in front of our peers; it will be a recognition that we have created a new specialty in psychology. Dave Cox, the Executive Director of ABPP, has been exceptionally responsive to our conversations and queries. We have a very strong ABPP Committee: Al Gruber, Lenore Walker, Owen Nichols, Elaine Levine, Bob McGrath, Brian Bigelow, Elaine Mantell, Jack Wiggins, and Joe Marceil, with Owen Nichols making particularly significant contributions. We have a window of opportunity to solidify our standing as prescribing psychologists and I am thrilled with the opportunity to lead this venture.
   
   
7. Working with a new Division 55 Committee to create a more formal connection between the research scientist and the practitioner in psychopharmacology.
   
   
8. Working on our Mid-Winter Conferences. After our first conference in Orlando, in 2005, that I initiated during my presidential term, I worked with Elaine LeVine on the Santa Fe conference in 2007. I am now chairing the 2008 mid-winter conference, as requested by president-elect Mario Marquez. The venue will be Missouri. There will be a group of us who will spend a day, January 9th, in Jefferson City, holding a press conference to publicize the dropping of the RxP bill on the first day of the 2008 legislative session and lobbying legislators. The rest of the conference will be held in Kansas City from January 10th – 12th. We are committed to making this conference a vehicle to pass RxP legislation in MO in 2008. Beyond 2008, we are committed to making MO the gateway for the passing of legislation throughout the Midwest region as well as the more urban states throughout the country.
   

What is the future of psychology?

We are the future of psychology. We have opened a new frontier and we will continue to push back the obstacles that stand in our way:

• every day
• with patience, persistence, intelligence, and money; with strategies that work
• with assertiveness
• with networking
• with effective legislative advocacy
  

We are the future of Psychology.