Question 5
What is your plan for recruiting and retaining early career professionals (ECPs) in APA?
ECPs are not one group; they are researchers, clinicians, and nonresearcher professors and teachers who each have different interests and each need a voice in APA governance. As president, I will ensure that there is less emphasis placed on the needs of smaller interest groups, and greater emphasis placed on the needs of the major groups within APA. I would help ensure that governance groups are led by respected and relevant people in their areas (e.g., researchers) with an agenda to improve the viability of that area (e.g., improvement in government grant funds for behavioral and neuroscience research).
Question 6
How can APA best advocate for effective health and behavioral health care for our public during this time of political uncertainty?
There needs to be an emphasis on integration of behavioral health care into health care in general, not just primary care. As president, I would appoint a panel to investigate how testing and intervention improve either health-care outcomes or assist in cost savings (e.g., diabetes compliance, surgical outcomes in elective spine surgeries). Psychology needs to emphasize how psychologists are similar to other doctors, not always on how we are unique. I would stress the need for hospital privileges, so that physicians have exposure to what psychologists can do to assist in overall patient management.