Insight Matters
Winter 2005

Candidate for APA Representative:
Robert J. Ronis, M.D., M.P.H.

Position Statement
I am honored to accept your nomination as a candidate for Representative to the APA Assembly. Having served the Ohio Psychiatric Association for the past 15 years, I feel competent to represent the views of the OPA to the Assembly; and having served as an Assembly Representative from the American Association of Community Psychiatrists, I feel that I have a reasonable understanding of how the Assembly operates - a challenge which sometimes takes years to master!

In many ways, the tasks facing our organization and profession today are the same as during my presidency: We continue our fight for insurance parity, a fight already won in many states, but not in Ohio. We continue our vigilance regarding scope of practice issues, most notably against psychologist prescribing privileges - a fight more recently lost in other states, and one which will continue to face Ohio in the coming years. We continue our quest for our students and residents to receive the best possible training, focused on all aspects of what it means to be a psychiatrist - not only to learn both psychopharmacology and psychotherapy, but to further develop their social consciences and understanding of our roles in the greater society. We continue to struggle with how to better define and imbue our junior colleagues with professionalism, and a willingness to participate, volunteer, and advocate for our profession and our constituents.

In all these issues of importance, the OPA and the APA are our strongest allies. The APA is the one organization which faithfully represents the interests not only of the psychiatric profession but of the mental health community - and is the only organization to do so above all other interests. It has demonstrated its ability to hear its members, to reorganize and restructure to reduce waste and to keep its focus - like a battleship, it may lack the agility to change course quickly, but its course can be changed. Our state organization is more nimble and perhaps closer to the "front" - but the battle can't be won without the big guns. The essential role of the Assembly Representative is to bring our state issues to the APA and to engage its energies to better serve our members.

My credentials are known to many of you: A career educator and administrator, I identify myself as a community psychiatrist. I have practiced in rural and urban settings, have served as a residency training director and interim chair of an academic department, and am active with several professional and community organizations. My signature "talent" has been the ability to bring together disparate groups, to create collaborative opportunities to better serve the public good.
If elected, I follow a number of outstanding representatives from our district branch. Drs. Dunn, Morgan-Minott and Thorward are vocal, respected members of the Assembly and of the Area IV Council. I hope to maintain the consistency and the excellence of the Ohio delegation's presence in the Assembly, and thank you for this opportunity.

Editor's note: There is no opposing candidate.

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