American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, June 7-10, 2022 ~ Online

This year in addition to the in-person Annual Meeting in New Orleans (May 21-25), APA is hosting an online-only Annual Meeting experience from June 7-10, 2022. Attendees will gather virtually Tuesday-Thursday 11 am - 6:00 pm ET, and Friday 11:00 a.m. - 4:15 p.m. to access 100+ select sessions for up to 16.5 CME. Online-only registrants will also receive access to a complimentary limited On Demand product, which will include the top 20 recorded sessions from the in-person meeting experience in New Orleans, offering an additional 20 CME. Register here.

Adrian Jacques H. Ambrose, MD, MPH
Beyond the Textbook: Practical Applications of Healthcare Provider Support for Burnout, Wellness, and Resilience (with Lourival Baptista Neto, MD)

Integrating lessons from both the academic and private sectors, this session will explore the effects of stressors on health care provider well-being and burnout as well as proposed solutions, which have ranged from individual-level changes (building resilience, yoga, meditation) to system-level changes (reducing administrative burden, increasing time for patient care, promoting team-based work). It will highlight a case study of service implementation for wellness support at a large academic health system: CopeColumbia.

Adrian Jacques H. Ambrose, MD, MPH
Getting Psyched-Out: Innovations and Challenges of Psychedelics in Psychiatric Research and Private Industry (with Michael Avissar, MD)

This session highlights key intersections of psychedelic innovations in research and potential applications in the general market and clinical practices. 

Doron Amsalem, MD 
A Primer on First-Episode Psychosis for the Practicing Psychiatrist: Keys to Providing Quality Psychiatric Care Within This Emerging National Mode

This course will provide training for the general psychiatrist in the key aspects of assessment, work-up, and intervention models for the young person at risk for or facing a first episode of psychosis. Throughout this course, opportunities will be made available for small group practice, role playing, case discussions, and other opportunities to enhance your practice.

Paul Appelbaum, MD
Parental Alienation and DSM-5: The Rubber Hits the Road

This session is intended to provide an introduction and overview of parental alienation and consider whether there is enough substantive research regarding parental alienation for it to be included in DSM-5.

Melissa Arbuckle, MD, PhD
Maps, Games, and Formulations:  Educating Trainees and Faculty to Address Social Determinants of Mental Health

This session aims to share how residency training programs across the country are tackling the task of including social determinants of health as part of the discussion in assessing and treating patients with mental illness. 

Evelyn Attia, MD
I Never Heard of That: A Clinical Review of Several Lesser Known Eating Disorders and Other Frequently Described Subclinical Patterns of Eating Behavior

This session will review definitions of the less well known eating disorders and other popularized labels used to describe problem eating patterns. 

Evelyn Attia, MD
Eating Disorders: A Clinical Update (with B. Timothy Walsh, MD and Joanna E. Steinglass, MD)

The Clinical Update is intended for practitioners who see individuals with eating disorders in their clinical practice and are interested in new issues, and advanced discussion of treatment strategies. 

Francine Cournos, MD 
Global Mental Health: Its Meaning Has Changed

In this presentation we illustrate how the maturation of GMH as a discipline and these changing circumstances are reshaping the meaning of GMH in psychiatry residency training.

Lisa Dixon, MD, MPH
“They Have No Insight and Won’t Take Meds”: Rethinking ‘Insight’ and ‘Engagement’ in Early Psychosis

This session will provide a state-of-the-science update on insight and medication decision making, and then segue into a discussion by a diverse panel with personal experience of psychosis. Weaving together personal, family, practice- and research-based experiences and insights, the panel aims to collectively deepen thinking about strategies designed to address long-standing practice problems.

Lisa Dixon, MD, MPH
Tricks of the Trade: Editors’ Advice on How to Get Published

The aim of this session is to provide the participants with some of the tricks of the publication trade. The speakers have experience both as publishing researchers and as editors for internationally renowned journals in the field of psychiatry. During the session, the speakers will engage with the audience and address some of the common challenges encountered during the peer review and publication process.

Ravi B. Desilva, MD 
Adapting to a Dynamic Landscape: Robust Strategies for Incorporating Social Determinants of Mental Health into Psychiatric Practices in the Military

This session will be interactive, giving participants an opportunity to respond to real-time questions that facilitate self-reflection on their management practices that incorporated social determinants to enhance care equity and outcomes.

Jack Drescher, MD
A Revolutionary in Psychiatry: Dr. Roger Peele

A new documentary, “A Revolutionary in Psychiatry,” examines Dr. Roger Peele’s life and his work to ensure LGBTQ patients are properly treated for their mental illness regardless of their sexuality, as well as countless other transformative psychiatric treatments. This session will begin with a viewing of the documentary, followed by a panel discussion of the changes Dr. Peele made within the field of psychiatry.

Jack Drescher, MD
Ethical Issues in Treating LGBTQ Patients

This presentation outlines some common clinical questions raised by LGBTQ patients—what is known and not known about the origins of homosexuality and transgender expression, sexual orientation conversion efforts, therapist self-disclosure, how therapists should address LGBTQ patients, and controversies surrounding treatment of transgender children—as well as ethical issues raised in these clinical encounters.

Jack Drescher, MD
Common Sexual Concerns in Patients (with Jennifer I. Downey, MD and Richard Krueger, MD)

This panel will address three questions that come up in the general psychiatrist’s office:

• What do we do about our teen? They are calling themselves “non-binary!”
• Doctor, I want you to tell me, “Am I gay?”
• “I’m watching too much porn on-line and some of it’s weird. My wife sent me.”

Michael B. First, MD
DSM-5-TR: What’s New and Why Clinicians Should Care

This presentation will describe the revision process and summarize the changes, highlighting those that are most clinically significant.

Michael B. First, MD
Why There are Two Classification Systems in Psychiatry and How They Differ

This presentation explains the intertwining histories of the development of editions of the DSM and the mental disorders sections of the ICD, describing past attempts at harmonization, and indicating how the different mandates, priorities, and constituencies of the APA and WHO mean that the two classifications will never be the same.

Carl Erik Fisher, MD
Updates from the Council of Psychiatry and the Law

This workshop will provide members with an overview of the Council on Psychiatry and Law development of APA Resource Documents and policy in the form of position statements. The goal is to provide members an update on recent issues that the council is addressing and an opportunity for feedback.

Deborah Hasin, PhD
2022 APA Medical Marijuana Debate

This session will provide practitioners with an update on marijuana laws in the US and the evidence for the use of ‘medical marijuana’ as a treatment for psychiatric disorders. The session will follow a debate format where each speaker will provide an update on the topic of their expertise.

Carl L. Hart, PhD
Addiction Research and Discrimination: The Need for a New Paradigm

Exaggerations of the detrimental impact of recreational drug use on the human health and functioning by addiction researchers have bolstered support for draconian drug policies. Such policies have led to racial discrimination, group marginalization, and countless preventable deaths. The lecture will explain these links and how awareness and public resolve points to healthier solutions.

Stephanie La Melle, MD
Am I Ready for My Patients to See Their Records? A Guide to Clinicians on Patient Centered Recovery-Oriented Documentation (with Ludwing Alexis Florez Salamanca, MD and Maria Mirabela Bodic, MD)

This session aims to empower the audience with recovery-oriented language and tools to produce documentation that is accurate, timely and not cumbersome, and at the same time helps bridge the gap between patients and providers and open the conversation about mental health diagnoses and treatment. 

Stephanie La Melle, MD
The Role of the Medical Director in the Current Health Care Landscape (with  Maria Mirabela Bodic, MD,  Bianca Nguyen, MD, MPH, and Ludwing Alexis Florez Salamanca, MD)

Using the Four Factor model of Systems-Based Practice, we aim to use this workshop to answer the call for more activities geared towards medical directors and help them (and psychiatrists aspiring to be in this role), to better understand their position inside their organizations, the reporting structures and funding streams being used, and their formal and informal authority in implementing change.

Jon Levenson, MD
“Brain Fog”: What Is It Really?

This Presidential session will address the cognitive dysfunction seen in COVID long haulers, chemotherapy patients, and patients with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. We hope to clear the fog surrounding “brain fog” by focusing on the recognition of symptoms, the theories on the causality of the cognitive dysfunction in these disorders, and the treatment strategies to manage the symptoms that will help improve the quality of life of these patients.

Frances Rudnick Levin, MD
The Neurobiology of Alcohol Use Disorder: A Heuristic Framework for Diagnosis and Treatment (with Philip R. Muskin, MD)

Significant overlap in the engagement in alcohol use disorder and of neural circuits mediating emotional pain and physical pain may provide insight into the development of medications and other treatments to reverse the allostatic changes to reward and stress circuits that drive and perpetuate alcohol use disorder. Breaking this cycle is possible through the use of FDA-approved medications and other promising therapeutic agents. 

Frances Rudnick Levin, MD
Methamphetamine Use Disorder and Treatment Updates in the Context of COVID-19 and the Opioid Epidemic

This symposium will first present the epidemiology and scope of the methamphetamine problem in the U.S. and its increasing prevalence among persons who use opioids, with additional impacts on the opioid crisis. It will then discuss evidence-based treatment approaches for methamphetamine use disorder, including behavioral and pharmacological treatment interventions.

Roberto Lewis-Fernández, MD 
Is There a Need for a Military Cultural Formulation Interview? (with Neil Krishan Aggarwal, MD and Ravi B. Desilva, MD)

This session reviews a proposed methodology to assess and determine both the need for specific versions of the Cultural Formulation Interview for any identified cultural subgroup and consideration for the steps taken to create a version of the CFI for use with persons affiliated with the military. 

Roberto Lewis-Fernández, MD 
A Roundtable Discussion With the Experts on the Future of the DSM: Striving to Remain Relevant to the Field of Psychiatry 

In this session, we ask the field to come be part of the solution in addressing key issues such as the influence of the social determinants of health (e.g., patient’s living situation, exposure to advantages and disadvantages in life course, education level, race, etc.) on mental health, especially in the marginalized populations, and how race, ethnicity and nationality are handled in the DSM.

J. John Mann, MD
The Development of an Antidepressant Stepped Treatment Algorithm Application (with Ravi Shah, MD)

The speakers have designed an application that does two main things that differ from major current treatment guidelines. First, it uses 3-week long sequenced treatment steps. Second, progression moves after only one step to medications that target more than one neurotransmitter system or two combinations of medications with different treatment targets. The session will explain the scientific evidence supporting these two modifications and describes how combinations of antidepressant medications can have a higher response rate than single medications.

Philip R. Muskin, MD
Psychotherapy for Addiction in a COVID World: Theory and Practice

In this clinical update, we will provide an overview of the theory behind different psychotherapies for addiction, as well as give practical suggestions on how busy psychiatrists can implement these techniques in their own clinical work. Special emphasis will be given to the integration of different psychotherapies with the psychopharmacology of addiction and other co-occurring psychiatric disorders. 

Warren Y.K. Ng, MD
National State of Emergency: Child and Adolescent Mental Health Crises

The humanitarian crisis for children and adolescents is significant as untreated and undiagnosed mental illness is associated with family dysfunction, poor school performance, juvenile incarceration, substance use disorder, and suicide. The pandemic has also exacerbated the risk factors known as the social determinants of mental health, the annual meeting theme.

Warren Y.K. Ng, MD
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Youth and Families

This session will address the overall impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth and families as well as how mental health and pediatric professionals can work together to improve care and outcomes. 

Edward V. Nunes, MD
The Theory of Opioid Use Disorder (with Philip R. Muskin, MD)

When used as indicated, opioids can be therapeutically very useful such as when used for severe pain conditions, including cancer pain or to facilitate anesthesia among others. Non-medical use, in contrast, often results in physical dependence and addiction and can lead to overdose deaths from respiratory depression. 

Helen Blair Simpson, MD, PhD
How Science Can Transform Treatments for OCD

This session will present a clinical research update on OCD, focusing on scientific findings that can be used by clinicians to improve their practice. The speaker will review: 1) how to diagnose OCD and differentiate it from other disorders with intrusive thoughts and behaviors; 2) what are evidence-based medications and therapy for OCD and how best to deliver each; and 3) what to do when first-line treatments do not work.

T. Scott Stroup, MD, MPH
Early Stage Investigators and Timely Support: The OPAL Center and its Mission to Fund and Train the Next Generation of Schizophrenia Researchers (with Stephanie Alexia Rolin, MD, MPH, Ana Stefancic, PhD, and Natalie Bareis, PhD)

The goal of OPAL is to identify the needs and accelerate the development, implementation, and adaptation of effective, personalized treatments for schizophrenia in real-world settings. Participants will learn about unmet needs of this population (including impaired social and occupational functioning, persistent psychotic and mood symptoms, and risk for disability and premature death) and how translational research can address these needs.

Milton Leonard Wainberg, MD
Scaling- Up Comprehensive Mental Health Care Using Digital Tools Can Decrease Global Mental Health Disparities and Associated Social Determinants

This presentation will describe the global burden of mental and substance use disorders, demonstrate the global and US treatment gaps; define the research-to-practice gap and how implementation science can help address the gaps. It will also demonstrate the scaling-up of comprehensive mental health using 100% task shifting/sharing and describe how digital screening, triage, and treatment tools can help address both the mental health disparities and the social determinants driving the disparities.