Insight Matters
Winter, 2003

Candidate for APA Representative:
S.R. Thorward, M.D.

POSITION STATEMENT

OPA has been a major part of my professional life since 1978. Psychiatry remains strong in Ohio in large measure due to the strong leadership, excellent teamwork, and dedicated staff of OPA. Our strength is sustained despite the ongoing challenges of stigma, myth, interdisciplinary rivalries, weak economy, managed care, decreasing state budget, and worn out support systems. When the challenges have seemed too much, OPA has been there to encourage me, to educate me, to represent me, to keep me sustained to continue our work.

Any team is no more than the synergistic sum of its members. Each of us must be willing to use talents and energy to advance the OPA team. I look forward to opportunity to serve Ohio in the Assembly, our national representative governing body.

We continue to live in the best of times, and the worst of times. We have more therapeutic tools than ever before. But those tools do little good if poorly informed care managers deny our patients medical necessity to access those tools. These tools do little good when all the appointment resources are booked several months in advance. These tools do little good if there are poor resources to recruit and teach residents how to use them. These tools do little good if our patients are in jails and prisons rather than therapeutic settings. These tools do little good if patients don't recognize their need for help. These tools do little good if we only have fifteen minutes every few months to use them. These tools do little good if we are denied fair compensation for applying them. It is the best of times. We have never had so many effective tools to help our patients. And we must use our organizations to challenge and change the hurdles that threaten to keep us in the worst of times by blocking the use of our tools.

As your elected representative to the APA Assembly, I pledge to work with the other two members of the Ohio delegation to represent our District Branch effectively and accurately. My many years as chair of our Government Relations efforts have schooled me well on our needs and strategies to pursue our goals: parity in health insurance, fair bargaining rights with insurers, tort reform, appropriate scope of practice for other disciplines, comprehensive training of medical students and residents, ethical interaction with pharmaceutical companies, establishment of mental health and drug courts, and universal access to health care. We have had successes. Tort reform was passed over desperate resistance form the trial lawyers. Marriage and Family Therapists were not allowed to use licensure as a way to inappropriately expand their scope of practice. Parity moved farther forward than ever before. Only last minute political blockade kept HB33 from reaching the House Floor.

I would like to stay on the team by serving as one of your representatives to the assembly. I will appreciate your vote this spring.

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