ASSOCIATION OF MEDICINE AND PSYCHIATRY
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
(Including General Membership Meeting)
November 14, 2001

Adams Mark Hotel
San Antonio, Texas

Meeting called to order by Dr. O'Connor at 0820.
The minutes from last years meeting were reviewed. Motion made to accept, all agreed.

In Attendance:
Robert Albanse
R.J. Canterbury
Dona Denton
Louis Dolinar
Donna Greenburg
Roger Kathol
Rick Malis
Kevin O'Connor
Brooke Parish, Fenton Award Winner Tulane Medical School
Nish Patel, Executive Director
Charles Schwartz
Ted Stern
Victor Stiebel
Lawson Wulsin

President's Report:
An overall busy year, lots of upheaval. Kevin gave a brief overview of the year, and reviewed what we need to accomplish today. Part of the tumult this year was because our executive director had resigned, then stayed, then resigned again. He negotiated with several people to become our executive director, including an outside consulting firm that specialized in small groups. They turned us down for a number of reasons, including an absence of strategic planning and lack of relevance to our constituents. He then introduced our new executive director, Nish Patel, from the Mayo Clinics. He pointed out that this is our ten-year anniversary and passed out a copy of our constitution with our original objectives. He asked each of the board to give an opinion of what we are here for. A lot of discussion ensued about who we are and where we want to be. In summary, Kevin pointed out that in many ways we have not really matured as an organization. We have achieved a lot of our goals, most in part, a few not at all. We are a great social group. Are we meeting the needs that our "constituents" want? Dona Denton agreed to spearhead a survey asking our members what they want. Lawson Wulsin and Ted Stern agreed to help. We will contact the residents in double training programs, residency directors, and our own organizations. Each of us will be assigned to someone or some program as a "big brother".

AMP Journal, Dr. Greenberg
During this last year we have officially, and amicably parted ways with Carden-Jennings. The bottom line was that they didn't see our Medicine and Psychiatry as a money maker. In many ways our journal was a success in that we did get copy, we did get some issues out. Among the problems was a turnover of managing editors, an overall lack of submissions, and delays in getting completed issues out. The publishers also didn't distribute copy as widely as had been hoped.

Contact was made by the John Shelton, publisher of Physicians Postgraduate Press, who was interested in asking AMP to make an organizational commitment to The Primary Care Companion to Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Dr. Greenberg introduced J. Sloan Manning, a family practice doc, who is the editor. The journal found its audience by identifying the practicing clinician who prescribes psychotropic medications. They have a distribution of over 36,000, (internists, family practice, OB, pediatricians). Donna pointed out that this is generally the same audience that Medicine and Psychiatry was aimed at. This is an established journal. They have drug company funding lines. They also have a wide distribution network. They will hopefully be listed in Index Medicus in the next year. She read the principles of collaboration suggested by the publisher. The new publication will be: The Primary Care Companion to The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. The "byline" will be "The Official Journal of the Association of Medicine and Psychiatry".

Dr. Manning gave an overview of the journal. He gave some of the history of how they came to be. They started officially in January 1999. Articles are aimed directly at people practicing primary care who take care of patients with psychiatric co-morbidity. They will give our group five spots on the editorial board. His goal is to become a recognized peer reviewed journal. He said they had been reviewed by National Library of Medicine and given a score of 2.5 out of 5, (meaning that they wanted to review the journal again in 18 months.) They are up for review again in a few months. They want to shore up their scientific integrity and peer review process before this review. They are already accredited for providing CME. Their goal is to become the preferred place that people who do research at the med-psych interface want to publish. Funding issues (and drug company sponsorship) were discussed. Editorial independence issues were also reviewed. On line CME has started and is ongoing. He is asking for a three year agreement, but will now be 18 months. We discussed whether we could "opt out" of certain journal supplements at our discretion.
We subsequently had some further discussion. We would like to have the journal sent to all members of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine as well as double trained physicians. A number of additional stipulations were introduced.

Motion made to pursue an affiliation as noted above. Seconded. Dr. Greenberg will pursue. Approved.

Introduction of this years Fenton Award - Charlie Schwartz
Introduced Brooke Parish, a fourth year resident at Tulane University Medical School.

This Year's Meeting - Dr. Stiebel
An interesting year. He made contact with all the med-psych residency training directors by email a number of times, with little to show for it. He also tried to directly contact the residents. Our meeting notice was not placed in the APM registration packet. The initial keynote speaker canceled in April, but was kind enough to get a replacement. We had almost 12 posters initially, but a number pulled out for various reasons. We had a really hard time getting cases for our CPC. World events also have contributed to a rather poor turnout.

Treasurer's Report - Dr. Dolinar
Distributed and reviewed our financial statements and balance sheets. Our balance this time last year was $17041, it is currently $9824. Our overall balance sheet shows a deficit of $1589. We have lost our grant from Bristol-Myers ($15000). (This had paid for our printed newsletter.) We have one small grant from Lilly. Depending on the actual costs of this meeting, our deficit may be a bit lower. For a number of reasons we are going to change the start of our fiscal year to January 1. This will allow us to actually discuss a budget at our annual meeting, in advance of when it actually starts. Without some significant source of income, we can't afford to have next year's annual meeting. Suggestions for fund raising were discussed:

Dr. Stiebel suggested that members of this board be required to ask one drug rep each year to provide money to the organization. This can be done in any way that the individual sees fit: Grants; Lecture Bureau; "Ride Alongs", etc.
Dr. Kathol made a number of suggestions: 1) selling advertisements on a web site, ours or The Primary Care Companion. Possibly job offers or job seeking. 2) We also need to solicit donations from our members. 3) We could offer CME type programs. 4) We could become an "accrediting organization" to certify med-psych units, or some other similar type of program.

Dr. Stern suggested a theme for next year's meeting that would allow a drug company to sponsor.

We will distribute a copy of our W-9 and IRS tax exempt ID information.
Motion: Dr. Denton proposed that each member on the council be responsible raising a minimum of $500 in any way that they see fit. Seconded. Approved. Dr. Stiebel and Nish will be responsible for tracking. We must all get on this ASAP and try and secure some commitments in the next two months.

Web Site - Rick Malis, Webmaster <amedpsych.com>
Our goal is to have a place for the newsletter and a forum for discussion and presentation of interesting information and topics. We had about 15-20 "hits" per day over this last year. People get to our site through searches that grab key words on the site. He reiterated that content (articles) is vital. Selling advertising is a real possibility. He would like to have a committee to help him review what to charge people, and what types of advertising is appropriate. Committee will be Dolinar, Kathol, Greenburg, Patel. To get the password to view the membership list on the web site, e-mail Rick Malis at malis@med-psych.net

Newsletter - Dr. Kathol
Requested any information about case conferences. He will put this into a real/fictitious format to accentuate the learning potential. It will also include in any noteworthy news. Rick will send out an email notification with a link to the web site. The goal is to have four issues each year.

New Board of Directors - Dr. Schwartz
It is time to think about a new president elect, and a new board of directors who will be responsible for next year's program. Bill Yates is head of the nomination committee, but was not able to attend today's meeting. Due to the lack of attendance at this year's meeting we will have to have our election by mail. This will need to be completed in the next two months.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 12:00 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Victor Stiebel, M.D.
AMP Secretary