Candidates for APA President
Thomas J. Vaughn has been in the private practice of behavioral medicine psychology for 24 years at a large multispecialty medical clinic and regional hospital in Shawnee, Okla. He also serves as the psychological consultant to the Oklahoma Licensing Board, advising the board, doctoral programs, students and practicing psychologists on issues related to training, credentialing, professional practice and ethical matters. He received his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Oklahoma and has held a position as adjunct faculty at the university since 1990. He completed his internship in clinical psychology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and his postdoctoral training at the Children's Institute for Behavioral Medicine.
Vaughn served for four years as the director of a comprehensive Regional Child Guidance Center where he developed a clinical internship program, and in 1984 was appointed to the position of director of training for the greatly expanded Oklahoma Health Consortium Clinical Psychology Internship Program in Oklahoma City. He served in that clinical and administrative position through 2002. He continues to mentor interns and postdocs, and teaches two seminars in the internship program.
Dedicated to solving the profession's mobility problem, Vaughn provided leadership in establishing mutual reciprocity agreements among and between U.S. states and Canadian provinces for mobility of licensure and eventually to the development of the individual endorsement of licensure vehicle through the ASPPB Certificate of Professional Qualification in Psychology (CPQ). Vaughn was elected and served for seven years on the ASPPB Board of Directors, was for three years the ASPPB Representative to the APA Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice and was president of the association. He was honored as a fellow and is the recipient of the Norma P. Simon Award for "contributions to licensing and credentialing of psychologists at the national and international levels."
Vaughn is a fellow of APA Div. 42, a member of Divs. 1, 31, 38 and 55, and is board certified in clinical psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology. He is licensed in Oklahoma, Missouri and Colorado, and has inactive licenses in Iowa and New Mexico. In response to a request from APAGS for information concerning licensure and certification for students, he developed a symposium on the topic that has been presented at the last three APA conventions and will be presented again in 2005. This presentation resulted in Vaughn being asked to be the editor/author of "Everything Students Need to Know About Licensure and Certification," which is scheduled to be published by APA Books in the fall of 2005.
Active since his student days in both his state psychological association and APA, Vaughn has served as chair of the legislative committee, insurance committee and hospital privileges committee, and in 1987 became the first psychologist in Oklahoma to be granted full hospital privileges. He has received the Karl F. Heiser APA Presidential Award for advocacy and has been honored by his state association, receiving both the Citation for Distinguished Contributions to the Profession of Psychology, and Distinguished Psychologist awards.
Vaughn's candidate statement
The practice of psychology has been interesting and rewarding. I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to perform work across a wide variety of stages in our profession: professional practice, training and mentoring interns and postdocs, developing professional mobility, and advocating for the continued standardization and expansion of the scope of practice under the licensure laws of our profession. I have been fortunate to work with talented colleagues in state, national and international arenas. It has been particularly exciting to witness and participate in the growth of our profession in the areas of advocacy and influence on public policy.
We must continue to develop, maintain and strengthen:
Utilization of psychological/behavioral research, the science foundation of our profession.
Advocacy, political and financial support for advancing the mission of professional psychology.
Protection for the most vulnerable in our society by assuring increased federal support of Medicaid.
Full mental health parity with the elimination of behavioral health carve-outs.
Integrated health service for health promotion and disease management.
Elimination of discrimination in the availability and provision of all health services.
Expansion of the scope of practice, to include prescriptive authority for those psychologists who can demonstrate proficiency to provide this adjunctive service to their patients.
Federal support for education and training at the undergraduate, graduate, internship and postdoctoral levels.
Complete licensure mobility for all psychologists in the United States and Canada.
Accreditation requirements at the graduate, internship and postdoctoral levels that support and enhance our hard-won standards of licensure.
Increase the availability of licensed school psychologists in public education.
Active student participation in all arenas of psychology.
We have been given the public trust. Our responsibility as scientists and practitioners is to do no less than improve the human condition.
