Bioethics and genetics top list of CE new programs

Workshops increase opportunities to learn at APA's Annual Convention Aug. 20-24 in Boston.

Mel Waters
Monitor staff

APA's Continuing Professional Education program (CPE) is offering several new workshops on bioethics, "the new genetics," Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and other areas at APA's 1999 Annual Convention in Boston. All offer continuing education credit.

ADD will be addressed in the 1999 Distinguished Speaker Seminar on Aug. 22, 7-10 p.m., by Thomas Brown, PhD. An assistant clinical professor in the department of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, Brown will focus on ADD as a cognitive impairment that also affects the executive functions of the mind that handle management and organization.

Impairments of ADD include far more difficulties than just listening to a speaker, says Brown, whose lecture is titled "Inattention and 'executive functions': new understandings of Attention-Deficit Disorder Syndrome." For example, he says, ADD includes impairments of brain functions that help people set priorities, establish a timetable or hold one thought while doing something else. ADD also affects motivation and the organizational capabilities in such things as driving, managing money or processing moods and emotions. Although everyone has occasional difficulties in these functions, Brown explains, in ADD functional impairment is much more pervasive and persistent than most people ever experience.

Brown will also discuss the co-morbidity of ADD with substance abuse, specific learning disorders and depression, as well as how psychologists can have an even greater involvement in the assessment and treatment of ADD.

For the workshop on bioethics, CPE has asked Bruce Corsino, PsyD, to discuss the clinical practice, public policy and research opportunities for psychologists in his lecture "Bioethics: a new home for psychology," Aug. 20, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Corsino, a psychologist and ethics consultant from the VA Medical Center in Martinsburg, W.V., will explore how psychologists can be involved with the new ethical and psychological dilemmas provoked by physician assisted suicide, cloning, genetic prediction and other emerging areas of medical practice. According to Corsino, almost all health institutions nationwide have active bioethics committees, providing counseling, policy development, research and education services to patients, families and staff. That work is focused on issues of human development, communication, decision-making and conflict resolution, which are core skills for most psychologists.

"All of those issues involve psychological principles at their heart," says Corsino, "yet they are being handled by non-psychologists and non-behavioral scientists. Bioethics may be the next lost, major opportunity for psychology to help society and advance itself."

In Corsino's workshop, he will discuss how psychologists can play a bigger role in bioethics and in the psychological dilemmas that arise from new technologies.

In addition to bioethics, CPE has also scheduled a workshop on psychologists and the "new genetics" on Aug. 23, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. The "New genetics: new and essential roles for psychologists" workshop, presented by Audrey Davis, PhD, E. Virginia Lapham, PhD, and Judith Benkendorf, from the George-town University Medical Center (GUMC) in Washington, D.C., will examine the applied and research roles of psychologists in the new genetics movement.

Once the Human Genome Project has identified all human genes and their purposes, the public will have access to information about their risk for an array of physical disorders, mental illnesses and behavioral problems, says Suzanne Bronheim, PhD, a psychologist at GUMC. People also will have a greater understanding of the genetic predispositions to those disorders and mental illnesses, she says. This knowledge is both helpful and stressful to individuals and families, she notes. This information will bring several ethical, legal, social and educational issues to the forefront.

For instance, insurance companies could perform a genetic profile on perspective clients to determine rates and coverage. Psychologists can help families deal with the stresses and difficult decisions that new genetic information brings, as well as taking the lead on such research issues as the appropriate age to give informed consent and the effects on lifespan psychological development when one knows he or she is predisposed to an illness.

"Psychologists have already taken primary research roles around behavioral genetics disorders and mental illnesses," says Bronheim. "But psychologists need to make sure that it stays scientific and not sensationalized, and to make sure research is communicated appropriately and effectively to the media, to patients and other people."

Other first-time CPE workshops include: