Electronic Summer 2023 | Issue 55

President's Message

By: Andrew J. Lancia, MD

I am honored to be writing to you today as the incoming President of the Illinois Psychiatric Society (IPS). Thank you for the support you have shown so far. I joined IPS by the encouragement of a past president and my current boss, Dr. Ryan Finkenbine. With his continual guidance and the guidance of all the wonderful council members, I write to you as your colleague and president. I would like to especially thank Drs. Abdi Tinwalla and Steve Weinstein for their mentorship and great leadership these past two years. Today, I would like to give you a bit of my background, recap a few of our successes, and provide you a glimpse of the upcoming year. I also want to encourage you to consider greater involvement in IPS as your opinions and help are essential to our organization. If you are like me and say that you do not have time, you have read this far, which is better than I used to do.

I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri where my father and mother raised six boys and a girl. My father immigrated to America from Sicily as a teenager and was able to build his own carpentry business. I was the first in my family to go into medicine, with my nephew now in medical school as the second. I went to Creighton University for undergraduate and medical school, but between the two, I went to St. Louis University for my Masters in Anatomy. For residency, I went to the University of Iowa where I was chief resident. After residency, I had a unique opportunity to help form a psychiatry residency program at the University of Illinois Peoria, where I was recruited to develop the consultation-liaison (CL) service, of which I am still the medical director today. This has been my home for the last thirteen years. I initially provided outpatient services, performed electroconvulsive therapy, and developed the Interpersonal Psychology clinic along with the CL service. I now run an inpatient unit and the CL service. I teach residents and students in my clinical duties as an Associate Professor of Psychiatry. I am also the medical director of the Carle Health Integrated Services of Hospital Based Programs (Methodist Campus) and chair of the Methodist campus. Most importantly, I hold the role of husband to my wife, Katie, and father to my three children, Joseph, Antonia, and Lucia.

This past year has been a tremendous success under the leadership of Dr. Tinwalla. He supported and encouraged more involvement with state agencies. We have met and started discussions on how we as psychiatrists can help inform and guide the government regarding all things related to mental health. We were able to gain grant money to help hire more lobbyists. And I am excited to say that we have successfully held off, and I feel, place on their heels, the psychologist prescribing advancement attempts. They were attempts to expand to children, elderly, and medically complex patients, while also expanding to prescribe more controlled substances.

Outside of legislation, we provided an informative lecture series virtually. Please check this out on our new, updated and beautifully put together website, thanks to Kristen Malloy, our Interim Executive Director and Meghan Engelbrecht, our new Administrative Coordinator. The series included lectures on: Advances in Therapeutic Neuromodulation, Back to the Future: Psychedelics in Psychiatry, TAAR1: Science Behind a Potential New TAARget for Schizophrenia, and Current State of Cannabis in Psychiatry. We also had a roundtable discussion with several legislators. We participated in representatives’ health fairs. And we had an in person Annual Meeting. This year, please join us again for our Annual Meeting on October 7, 2023.

This year I would like to bring to the forefront a Commitment to Patients, a Commitment to Life. All too often, it seems that we are losing focus on the most important things in our society. Our Declaration of Independence reads, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” I believe these three rights are placed in order of importance, for without life there is no liberty and without liberty there is no opportunity to pursue happiness. As physicians, we too made an oath: I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage (Hippocratic Oath). Therefore, I would like us to take a greater look at how we can promote life. I would like us to look at our judicial system to help find ways to protect patients from the harm of their illness.

We will have a Judicial Roundtable on June 29, 2023 where we can engage with judicial leaders on how the court functions and ask questions on how it may need to change. At our annual meeting, we will look at how we are doing at predicting suicide and learn ways to improve our accuracy. The time is ripe for us to make a change in our state. Mental health is being recognized more and more as an essential issue in society.

We have developed a Mental Health Blueprint which has been distributed across the state. You may have heard me on the radio or seen me on television discussing our three pillars of access, systems of care, and prevention. I thank the many members who contributed ideas to forming this document. My hope is for us to use this blueprint to move government initiative and financial backing to evidence based treatments and programs which will improve the life of our patients and us as psychiatrists and citizens of Illinois.

There are so many exciting things happening at IPS. Forgive me for not naming everyone personally or even mentioning all the events. I simply hope to see more of you over the next year. I look forward to working with the new executive committee of IPS: Dr. Lillian Joy Houston- President Elect, Dr. Adrienne Adams -Treasurer and Dr. Jeff Bennett-Secretary. Please reach out to me or Kristen Malloy if you would like to be involved in any of the committees mentioned on the IPS website or if you have any ideas/suggestions/recommendations how IPS can work to improve the life of our community.

Thank you again for giving me an opportunity to lead this organization. May you have a safe and relaxing summer.