May 2004

MONDAY MAY 17TH 2004
18TH PAN-HELLENIC CONGRESS OF PSYCHIATRY

These minutes were approved by the HAPA Executive committe.
Final ratification of minutes at the HAPA 2005 Meeting.

On Monday May 17th after a very successful Round Table DISCUSSION on The Hellenic Psychiatric Association and the Hellenic American Psychiatric Association A WIN-WIN PARTNERSHIP FOR THE FUTUREÓ members of the HPA & HAPA held a business meeting to discuss improving communications and expanding possibilities for collaboration.

MEMBERS PRESENT:
From HPA: Drs Athanasios Vidalis, Iannis Zervas, Venos Mavreas, Yannis Papakostas, George Papadimitriou, Panagiotis Grigoriou, Stelios Stylianidis.
From HAPA: Drs Constantinos Lyketsos, Georgios Petrides, Maria Lymberis, Emmanuel Cassimatis

Dr Lyketsos chaired the meeting. There was enthusiastic agreement that HAPA is serving a real need in offering a formal connection for Greek and American psychiatrists. This was no formal agenda for this meeting. Dr Lymberis gave a brief history of the founding of HAPA and Dr Lyketsos encouraged the participants to bring forth their concerns. There emerged an, open, cordial and engaging discussion of the following issues: What can HAPA offer to HPA? What the needs/interests of Greek psychiatrists are?, How HPA can help HAPA? . This was the first time that the HAPA leadership had the opportunity to hear directly form our colleagues in Greece. A number of ideas and suggestions immerged
1) HAPA & HPA could work on Education
a. Visiting Professorships: maybe every October in Athens under the sponsorship of HAPA and the University of Athens (UA). This would center around an evening keynote lecture, maybe in one of the U of A auditoria, on a topic of broad interest to psychiatry, but would also be of interest to physicians in all specialties. The visiting Professor might also spend some time with residents/faculty at Aiginiton hospital on days surrounding the keynote activity. Venos Mavreas will be exploring topics of interest among Greek psychiatrists with a series of focus groups in Greece. He would be the contact person communicating with HAPA on the results/ideas that develop from these efforts.
b. Education in the USA for Greek psychiatrists, residents, medical students going into psychiatry. Venos Mavreas will explore interest re what types of education would be of value for different groups of docs, e.g., health system docs, academics, fellows, etc. The idea would be to present a proposal in the LT to the ministry to support this in collaboration with HAPA.

c. Research support/mentorship involving:
Review of papers before publication. HAPA will need to have a roster of HAPA members who would be qualified and willing to do this, (maybe review no more than 1-2 papers a year in their area of expertise) They would comment on the paper as a reviewer and suggest Journal direction.
Help with the translation of scales and clinical measures into Greek.
Develop a seminar on clinical research methodology in psychiatry. Perhaps a 3-4 day series with HAPA members as speakers in Greece with HPA sponsorship at a Greek university and possibly funded by outside sources(?) .

2) Consultation & Referrals
There is a need for info re referrals both ways .and a mechanism should be developed.

3) Improve Communications between HPA & HAPA

Write and provide a regular HAPA News Column for Greek psychiatric publications like the Journal of Dr Vidalis and Psychiatriki.

Greek HAPA members could write & provide a HAPA News page for posting on message boards of all Greek hospitals with psychiatric residents.

Greek HAPA members could help promote the HAPA Annual meeting by finding out who are the Greeks that are coming to the APA meeting and send a personal invitation to come to HAPA meeting. Maybe work to fund raise from some pharmaceutical companies that support Greek psychiatrists travel to the APA meeting and see if they will also support the HAPA meeting.
Dr Lyketsos will be coming to Greece with Dr Alexopoulos in the fall 2004 for a conference. Both would be available to implement the idea of a HAPA-HPA Visiting Professorship, lecture at the University and meet with residents.

Respectfully Submitted

Maria T Lymberis, MD
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA
HAPA Founder & Past President

Constantinos Lyketsos, MD
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Co-Director, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neuropsychiatry
HAPA President”

May 4th 2004, New York, NY

NOTE: This is a draft to be approved by the HAPA executive committee and to be ratified at the 6th HAPA Annual Meeting in New Orleans May 2005.

HAPA President Constantine Lyketsos, MD was unable to attend. Dr Lymberis, HAPA Founder and Past President opened the meeting welcomed everyone and asked HAPA President Elect Dr Petrides to chair the meeting. Meeting was called to order at 7:45PM

Members & Guests Present: Drs Dennis & Georgia Agallianos, Manolis Cassimates, Michael Kalogerakis, Socrates Pappas, George Alexopoulos,Nicholas Stratas, Miltiades Zaphiropoulos, Peter Lourgos, Stephanie Spanos, William Cardasis & Mrs Cardasis, George Christodoulou & Mrs Christodoulou, George Petrides
George Papadomitriou, Constantine Gatos, Dimitris Kiosses, Christina Demopoulos and Dimitra Hrisikos, Vassilis Latoussakis, Stella Lymberis, Mary Eugenia Theodorou, Lila Amirali and Maria Lymberis.

(I) PresidentÕs & PresidentÕs Elect Reports

Dr Petrides presented the message from HAPA President : (Costa & George please insert here what it was you said I can not find my notes).
Dr Petrides welcomed the members of the Hellenic Psychiatric Asssociation Drs Kiosses, Gatos, Christodoulou and our HAPA Councilor Dr Papadimitriou. He noted that HAPA Secretary Dr Zervas was unable to attend but will be present at the KOS meeting later on this month.

(II) Approval of the Minutes of the 2003 HAPA Annual Meeting
Dr Lymberis noted that she is responsible for the Minutes. The Minutes are posted on the HAPA Website after approval of the draft by the HAPA Executive Committee to be ratified at the next HAPA meeting. She requested that all members (and guests too) review them and if there are any corrections/additions that these are emailed to her, preferably, prior to the next meeting.

(III) TreasurerÕs Report

Dr Lymberis presented the report by HAPA Treasurer Dora Wang, MD and noted that Dr Wang was present from the founding of HAPA and served as HAPAÕs first Treasurer with distinction. Currently she is serving her second term. Dr Wang submitted her resignation effective at the end of this year because she is now devoting her time to the raising of her daughter and is only working part time. Dr Wang also resigned from the APA. She hopes to rejoin in the future.
The following is Dr WangÕs own statement:

It has truly been a privilege and pleasure to have served as HAPAÕs Treasurer for the past four years. It is a credit to HAPA that you have welcomed me, whose ancestry is from such a northern outpost of Greece, into such an important role for HAPA.
Thanks to Georgia Agallianos for organizing the mailing of dues notices this year. This has been a big help! HAPA is truly a spirited, visionary and all-encompassing organization, and IÕm sure it will thrive for many, many long years.
In the past two years, I have taken on another kind of Hellenic American endeavorÑI am trying to raise a Greek-American family (with influences from my own Asian Brazilian heritage). Since the birth of my daughter Zoe Ming-Mei Tsacalotos, I have cut back my professional life significantly. Because I have chosen to take a hiatus from APA membership, I am no longer eligible to serve as Treasurer for HAPA.
The position of HAPA Treasurer is one that I would recommend highly, as it is an opportunity to be a part of something that is truly important.
Yassas! Dora

Dr Lymberis noted that HAPA is in fair fiscal shape considering that we are still not well staffed and that all the work is done by members on a volunteer basis. She is committed to continue to do the work to keep HAPA moving ahead until we are in a better fiscal situation and can afford to hire a staff member. However she was again unable to publish a Newsletter and requested volunteers who would be willing to work on this project. She expressed her appreciation for the work Drs Agallianos have done this year. Their efforts made it possible for HAPA to get the dues out by the end of 2003. The team of Drs Agallianos with the assistance from both Drs Wang and Cardasis made a good start in establishing the format for this year.

HAPAÕs Income as of 4/30/04 was as follows:
Revenue
Dues
General Members 2,400
Affiliate Members 105
MIT 100
Donation 35
Interest 7
2,647
HAPAÕs Expenses:
Expenses
Merrill Lynch 150
2004 meeting deposit 500
650

Net Gain for the Year $1,997

Current Balance $7,776.07

Dr Wang recommended that when the HAPA bank account is transferred to the new Treasurer we should get out of the Merrill Lynch account and get a better bank rate.

Dr Lymberis noted that she was unable to get funding from any pharmaceutical company this year for our meeting. She requested that all members participating in this meeting consider paying the full price of the cost of tonightÕs meal of $80.00. The cost is higher than usual because costs as a rule are higher in NYC than anywhere else. Dr Lymberis noted that almost everyone present paid the full cost of $80.00 for the evening meal and a number of people actually paid $100 specifically Drs Christodoulou and Demopoulos while Dr Stratas made a $500 contribution to HAPA. Dr Lymberis expressed her deep appreciation for the generous contributions, which indicate the shared commitment to the goal of having a viable and growing HAPA and assuring its future.

Dr Lymberis discussed the change in the funding rules of the pharmaceutical industry. In the future we need to have CME credit for funding. This means that our scientific program has to be reviewed by the APA Annual Meeting Committee. The deadline is the end of the summer 2004 for the 2005 May meeting. Dr Lymberis will work with Dr Petrides who is the Chair of the HAPA Program Committee for 2005 on this issue.

(III) Membership Report

Dr Cardasis send in his report because he could not attend the meeting. He noted:

We had 31 paid members before the APA meeting in NYC. A new member,
Dimitra Hrisikos, CFTh will come to NY and will pay her dues at the HAPA meeting. I do not know how many new members, if any, joined that night. So that makes 32 paid members by my count to date, pending any additions from May 4th 2004.

(V) Hellenic Psychiatric Association Report

Dr Christodoulou as the President of the HPA informed the participants of the very exciting plans for the upcoming 18th Pan-Hellenic Psychiatric Congress in the island of Kos the birthplace of western Medicine and home of Hippocrates. HAPA will participate in the Congress in a number of ways. Our President as well as Drs Dunkas, Cassimates and Lymberis will participate as speakers, a jointly sponsored HPA-HAPA Panel Discussion under the title: ÒA Win-Win Partnership for the FutureÓ and a members meeting to discuss ways to strengthen the HPA-HAPA connection and involve more psychiatrists in Greece in HAPA.
Dr Christodoulou is leading the effort to organize the psychiatrists of Eastern Europe & Balkans into an Association under the WPA.
Dr Christodoulou is a key leader in world psychiatry and a devoted supporter of HAPA having helped in its founding and served as an officer. Presently he is running for office in WPA. We in HAPA are supporting him and are very proud of him.

In closing Dr Christodoulou urged members to consider attending the
upcoming Intersectional Congress of WPA on March 2005 in Athens and the World Congress of Psychiatry in September 2005 in Cairo.

(VI) Elections Committee Report

Dr Petrides noted that the only office open for elections is that of Councilor for 2004-2007 because the term of office of Dr Kanellos Charalambous is presently expiring. Dr Charalambous was nominated for another term. There were no nominations from the floor.
Dr Charalambous was elected unanimously for a second term of office.

Dr Lymberis moved to accept the resignation with regret of Dr Wang and nominated Dr Georgia Agallianos to fill out the remainder of the term of office of Dr Wang as HAPA Treasurer. There were no nominations from the floor. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously. Dr Peter Lourgos a new MIT HAPA member, offered to work with Dr Agallianos in the database of the HAPA membership.

(VII) New Business

Dr KalogerakisÕs report of his work with the Greek Church could not be presented due to time pressures. It will be included as an addendum to the minutes.

(VIII) Scientific Presentation

Dr Petrides closed the members meeting at 9:00PM. He introduced Dr Alexopoulos who treated the members present to an excellent presentation of his cutting edge research. His presentation: “”WHAT CAN COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT TEACH US ABOUT DEPRESSION?Ó provoked to a stimulating discussion. Dr Petrides closed the meeting at 10:30PM

The Sixth HAPA Annual Meeting will take place in New Orleans on May 2005. Check the HAPA Website for details around December 2004.

Respectfully Submitted
Maria T. Lymberis, MD
HAPA Founder & Past President”