Insight Matters
Summer, 2003

Celebrating Our Diversity
by Mark R. Munetz, M.D., OPA President

On July 27, a rare sunny summer Sunday, twenty of our 1024 members assembled in Columbus for the OPA Council meeting and annual leadership retreat. Who are these people who represent you as OPA's leaders? You might expect we are the usual suspects, white middle-aged men. While that describes me, it is not representative of OPA Council or of the OPA membership. In fact, a majority of those leaders at our meeting, like our membership are comprised of people from minority and under-represented groups. OPA is truly diverse and as we noted at the Council meeting, white men are a distinct minority within our organization. This is a good thing considering the diversity of the patients we serve.

This was an important part of the conversations at the July Council meeting as we considered the fate of two OPA ad-hoc committees that are not currently active, Minority and Underrepresented Groups and Economic Affairs. The OPA Committee on Minority and Underrepresented Groups emerged in 1994 as a third iteration of what was started in 1986 as the Committee on Women. At that time it was noted minority groups have been identified as either those which have been underserved in psychiatric services within the U.S. population or underrepresented within our organization. These groups included women, international medical graduates, gay/lesbian/bisexual, Black, Asian, Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native/Hawaiian. The charge of the Committee was to "encourage and recruit minorities in psychiatry training programs and minorities who are not members to become members; encourage minority members to become involved in Association committees; inform Council of new developments and make recommendations regarding issues relating to minorities."

As I noted above, these historically underrepresented groups today represent a majority of our membership. Of our 1024 members today, 597 (58%) are known to be in one or more of the categories above. At our council meeting 12 of the 20 present (60%) fall into one or more "minority" categories. The good news then is that the composition of Council appears to reflect the diversity of our membership. The bad news is how few of our members are active in leadership and that there are still many Ohio psychiatrists who do not belong to OPA/APA. I hear psychiatrists do not believe we represent their interests, as varied as such interests are. OPA Council believes that we need a vibrant committee addressing the issues of our diverse membership and the diverse patients we serve. Believing that words are important, we voted to change the name to the Diversity/Cultural Competence Committee. Council also voted to make this an official Council-Designated Committee, signifying its importance to the leadership. We want to expand the charge of the Committee to include not only representing the diversity of our membership (and profession) but also to address the need for culturally competent care of the patients we serve. I will be contacting chapter presidents to seek members and a Chair for this committee. Please let me know if you are interested in serving.

We do not know what proportion of our members is predominantly in private practice, but almost certainly it is smaller than it was in the past. There are enormous challenges for private practitioners. We all know how the dilemmas of managed care have resulted in mangled care. We all know colleagues who have stopped doing inpatient work and others who have closed their offices. These are issues that in the past were taken on by the Economic Affairs Committee. As Council discussed, this committee has lost steam in the last few years and is not clear of its mission. Again, believing in the importance of the words we use, Council suggested a name change. The Practice of Psychiatry Committee is now also a Council-Designated Committee. We hope it will take on such problems as those underlying in general the flight of our colleagues from private practice and inpatient care in particular. Again, I will be contacting our chapter presidents looking for interested committee members and a Chair for this revitalized Committee. Again, please let me know if you are interested.

OPA leadership at all levels wants to be responsive to our members. Feel free to contact any of us on Council and share your concerns and ideas. Email mmunetz@neocom.edu or call me 330-762-3500.

Back to Newsletter