Professional organizations?

[poptart215]

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Hi all, I'm a PGY-2 psych resident, and I was wondering that the point is of joining professional organizations as a member? Examples include AMA, APA, American Assoc. of Emergency Psychiatry, Am. Assoc. of Child Psychiatry, etc....

Is it simply to receive newsletters and attend conferences?
Is it something that is beneficial to a CV?

As a person hiring one day, if I saw someone belonged to like 5 organizations, the only thing I'd think is that they spent $500 on some annual memberships. Unless you are in a leadership position in one of those organizations it doesn't seem very useful for your career. So I'm trying to see if there are any benefits to joining that I can't think of at the moment. Thanks for your input!

 

[splik]

The AMA represents everything that is wrong with medicine. The AMA is the reason that specialists doing procedures get to fraudulently earn more than physicians in cognitive specialties and prevented any true healthcare reform in this country.

It is most common for people to join the organization that most closely represents your interests. So a general psychiatrist might join APA, if you are into child then AACAP, psychosomatics then APM, forensics AAPL etc. Also it is usually much cheaper to join the specialty ones especially as a resident where some of fees are nominal or free. Or they may be additional things like I think APA is free your first year as a resident and then you have to pay.

It's not really beneficial for your CV but you get reduced rates for conferences and they provide relevant services, networking opportunities, directories for job searches etc. You also usually get a paper copy of the journal (like the green journal or orange journal) the APA produces a guide to setting up a private practice for members, and help with negotiating your first contract, you can do the suboxone certification for free as an APA member (which costs more than the membership fee otherwise). There are also awards for residents and travel grants etc that are not available if you're not a member.

The other thing to bear in mind is that the more members these organizations have (they are essentially political organizations) the more effective they are at lobbying for interests. The APA probably spends far too much time and money on defeating psychologists' prescribing but essentially it is a guild organization and if things like psychologists not prescribing, or lobbying for better renumeration for psychiatrists or suing insurance companies for unfair practices is important to you then you should become a member.

 

[nitemagi]

Splik summarized it well. Also your local psychiatric association will require membership in APA/State PAssoc. They are political. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's not necessarily a good thing, either.

Most real science and good talks are at subspecialty conferences, not the main APA mtg (though honestly I've never gone for that reason).

I would not consider it beneficial to a CV, unless you're a "distinguished fellow of..." perhaps.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Other potential benefit of APA membership -- MOC stuff. I think APA has a lot of free MOC materials for their members. You can piece together this stuff from other sources, but it might be harder.

Do you guys feel like these organizations are suffering more than they used to? For example, I've seen much less support from our state psychiatric association for trainees in the last few years.

 

[michaelrack]

For post-residency docs, It helps to be a member of your main specialty societies - there are products for members to help meet Maintenance of Certification requirements. I am a member of the American College of Physicians (IM) and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. I meet my MedicARE PQRS reporting requirements through a product sponsored by the AASM that helps me report sleep apnea quality measures. The APA has similar products for MOC and I am guessing also for PQRS http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality...ssessment-Instruments/PQRS/MeasuresCodes.html

 

[splik]

Do you guys feel like these organizations are suffering more than they used to? For example, I've seen much less support from our state psychiatric association for trainees in the last few years.

I think this is probably true. Residents (especially in psych) are more likely to be social justice oriented and feel that these organizations should be doing more for patients. I think it makes people uncomfortable when these organizations are outright self-serving and locked in battles that residents are less interested in. This is probably particularly true in oregon where the state medical societies are the bad guys and the legislature see them as being a nuisance who would happily deny medical care to vast swathes of the state in a bid not to give an inch to mid levels though they have no interest in providing care to these patients themselves. It doesn't look like they've been successful - I read oregon became the first state this year where primary care and mental health NPs have to get paid the same as psychiatrists by insurance companies....

 

[Doctor Bagel]

I think this is probably true. Residents (especially in psych) are more likely to be social justice oriented and feel that these organizations should be doing more for patients. I think it makes people uncomfortable when these organizations are outright self-serving and locked in battles that residents are less interested in. This is probably particularly true in oregon where the state medical societies are the bad guys and the legislature see them as being a nuisance who would happily deny medical care to vast swathes of the state in a bid not to give an inch to mid levels though they have no interest in providing care to these patients themselves. It doesn't look like they've been successful - I read oregon became the first state this year where primary care and mental health NPs have to get paid the same as psychiatrists by insurance companies....

On that note, yes, our state psychiatric association has not done a good job politically in representing us, even though it's admittedly a very hard task. Last genius plan -- changing our name from Oregon Psychiatric Association to Oregon Psychiatric Physicians Association. Not brilliant PR in a landscape where nurse practitioners are viewed as the gentle, approachable, non-egotistical (and as good as physicians (hey public perception)) providers. We need to rethink our tactics.

As for the social justice/resident angle, I'm not sure -- the OPPA used to pay for lots of resident things (like residency retreat, APA dues, etc), and they've cut back significantly on funding both in the past one to two years. It makes me think they have less money. We joke that they spent it all changing their logo for their name change. And hey, I'm right there with them on wanting to protect our turf -- I don't think residents here disapprove of their stance there. We're the generation of physicians who owe the most money -- income protection is pretty important to most of us.