INVITED SESSION Why Me? Leadership in C-L Psychiatry

What makes us leaders in C/L Psychiatry? We ALL lead the clinical and collaborative care of patients across departments, systems of care, departments and clinical conditions. Consider medical ethics, integrated behavioral health care, public health, medical informatics, medical education, administrative and research groups within and outside hospitals, in the community and at national and international levels. Wow! Today, we will hear from a select few of our essential leaders, with a focus on their personal developmental journey into their leadership roles.

A True Tale of Leadership: Chance Favors the Prepared
As medical organizations become ever more complex, psychiatrists will increasingly find themselves in informal and formal leadership roles requiring not only clinical experience and expertise but also administrative and leadership acumen. Yet traditional medical training includes little preparation for these challenges. Through the use of a personal career leadership narrative, this presentation will explore opportunities for deliberate management and leadership training, skill, and knowledge acquisition as well as practical tools for success.

Riding Tsunamis: Turning waves of disasters into research opportunities
As a C-L Psychiatrist I see myself as a member of a much larger medical team or system, rather than just a psychiatrist. Although usually called in to assist when a behavioral emergency or disaster occurs, I see our role as bridging the gap between the patient’s behavior and the underlying pathophysiology causing it. As we partner with internists, intensivists, surgeons, and emergency medicine physicians we are challenged with coming up with ways to manage and/or prevent neurobehavioral syndromes which compromise patient’s and staff safety, and often might be harbingers of underlying pathophysiology as in the case of delirium and limbic encephalitis. My presentation will review how throughout my career I have seen these behavioral emergencies as challenges to study, discover and learn in order to improve the quality of our patient’s life, assist our colleagues, and add to the understanding of disease pathophysiology and management: from the pathophysiology and management of delirium to the prevention and treatment of alcohol withdrawal syndromes, to the influence of psychosocial factors that influence of organ donation and the success of organ transplantation.

Organizing Education for the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry of the Future
Since 1953, the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine, now the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, has struggled to bring into being a new area of medicine, to envision a new approach to medical illness integrating care of both body and mind, to find our place in the house of medicine. It has been the speaker's good fortune to be part of the ACLP's educational efforts during the foundation of the newest board-recognized psychiatric subspecialty. From proactive organization of consultation practice to education for well-being in Chinese high schools, from studies of seasonal effects on mood to studies of suicidal outcomes in C-L practice, the speaker would like to illustrate the excitement of his journey with the ACLP and reflect on the identity of the organization we treasure.

My Milestones in Pediatric Consultation Liaison Leadership Development
Dr. Maryland Pao will discuss her passion for the field of pediatric consultation liaison psychiatry. As the child of two psychiatrists, she will briefly share her odyssey through pediatrics, general psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry and how she fit her work into what she cares about- family life and parenting. Other milestones she achieved include learning about clinical research, the importance of mentoring and how to lead in an organization. Lessons learned include knowing that perseverance, authenticity, and aequinimitas are helpful and there are many ways to lead.

Creating your work family
This presentation will be based on two leadership experiences working with teams of 15-35 colleagues who had diverse professional training backgrounds. Personal reflections will be shared on lessons learned from leadership successes and failures.