Federal News & Issues

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 12, 2021 – The members of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) have chosen Rebecca W. Brendel, M.D., J.D., as the medical society’s next president-elect. The results were released today but are not official until the APA Board of Trustees confirms them at its March meeting.

Dr. Brendel is director of the Master’s Degree Program at the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, of which she is also an associate director. She bases her clinical work in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital where she is the director of Law and Ethics at the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior. She is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

An APA Distinguished Fellow, Brendel is currently chair of APA’s Ethics Committee, vice-chair of the Massachusetts Medical Society...

Washington, D.C., Feb. 1, 2021 — The American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Society (PaPS) today offered their formal support to the nomination of Rachel Levine, M.D., as President Biden’s Assistant Secretary of Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Dr. Levine received APA’s 2018 Javits Award for Public Service, which is the highest honor the organization gives a public servant. She was selected for the award for her leadership in Pennsylvania in fighting the opioid epidemic, her long record of promoting collaboration between physical and mental health, and her advocacy for the LGBTQ community.

Since becoming the Pennsylvania Secretary of Health in 2017, Dr. Levine has been a critical partner in efforts to improve mental health and substance use disorder care and...