 |
 |
|
|
Steven M. Mirin, M.D., has been named APA's next medical director by the APA Board of Trustees. Meeting in early November, the Board welcomed Mirin following agreement on a contract for his term of service. Mirin later addressed the Assembly, announcing that he will join the staff on July 1, 1997, and work in the interim with APA Medical Director Melvin Sabshin, M.D., for a smooth transition over the summer.
Mirin is currently president and psychiatrist in chief at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston. He was appointed to these positions in 1991 at McLean, a not-for-profit private psychiatric hospital affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital and Partners HealthCare System.
Mirin is administratively responsible for McLean's clinical, research, and training missions and the hospital's support operations and facilities.
These activities represent a combined annual budget of approximately $90 million, a workforce of more than 1,000 full-time equivalent professional and support staff, and physical assets valued at over $150 million.
In his remarks to the Assembly, Mirin said, "In my two decades of participation in APA, I have developed a profound respect for the values that our organization embraces and for those of our members who have given generously of their time, talent, and energy to advance the goals of our Association."
He continued, "As your next medical director, I am all too aware of economic and political realities of the current health care environment and the need for strategic planning, alliance building, and, at times, compromises.
"Perhaps, the most important issue confronting us in American psychiatry today is the growing corporatization of mental health care." Mirin noted that myriad cost-control strategies "place providers at risk not only for the clinical outcomes of care, but also for the costs of care."
Among the steps APA must take to meet these challenges are redoubling its efforts to educate payers, patients, and providers about appropriate care; develop strategic alliances to achieve full parity of insurance coverage for the mentally ill; and pursue legislative initiatives on the federal and state levels to ensure access to quality care, stated Mirin.
APA President Harold Eist, M.D., told Psychiatric News, "Dr. Mirin was selected to be the next medical director after a lengthy and thoughtful search process that included careful, deep deliberations at the Board level. Dr. Mirin was chosen from a magnificent group of candidates because the Board determined that he had the requisite skills to lead our Association at this difficult time in our history.
"He is a competent administrator, an excellent educator, and a superb negotiator and is experienced in many areas of psychiatry. He is also artful, creative, gifted, and dedicated and possesses a sense of humor that will help him negotiate the rough spots."
APA President-elect Herbert Sacks, M.D, commented, "This is a great moment in American psychiatry with Steve coming on board replacing our remarkable and brilliant medical director. He's truly a man for our times."
He added, "I've known Steve as a good friend and colleague and his family, especially his distinguished psychiatrist wife, Margie, for over 20 years. In the Assembly and Board, he found fresh solutions to old problems. His superb professionalism and consummate people skills will open new vistas for psychiatry into the new millennium."
Sabshin applauded the appointment as well: "Dr. Mirin is an outstanding physician who will bring vision and enthusiasm to APA. It is a measure of the high regard in which he is held that he was chosen from so distinguished a group of candidates for the position. I welcome him and look forward to our work together in the next year in effectuating as seamless as possible a transition to his administration."
In an earlier statement to the Board of Trustees supporting his candidacy, Mirin said, "Based on my experience as a clinician, administrator, researcher, teacher, and as an active participant in the committees and governance of APA, I believe that, at this juncture in our history, the new medical director of APA will play a pivotal role in helping shape the future of American psychiatry.
"In so doing, this individual can help ensure not only the survival of our profession, but more importantly, the availability of high-quality psychiatric care for current and future generations of patients."
Mirin's selection follows an extensive search by a committee named by then president Jerry Wiener, M.D., and headed by former APA president Carol Nadelson, M.D. The search committee narrowed the field of candidates over this past year and presented its top choices to the Board of Trustees. In the summer the Board interviewed two candidates, finally selecting Mirin.
In addition to his positions at McLean, Mirin is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a position he has held since 1991. "Throughout my professional life, I have valued my time spent teaching and supervising medical students, residents, and clinical staff," Mirin told the Board.
As a resident at Boston University Medical Center, Mirin developed and taught several courses on human development and programs in psychopathology.
He is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in general psychiatry and received his medical degree in 1967 from the State University at New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical College in Syracuse.
For almost two decades, Mirin has been involved in APA at the district branch and national levels. He recently served as a trustee-at-large and is a member of APA's Joint Board/Assembly Task Force on Strategic Planning. He has served on many APA components, most notably the Committee on Research on Psychiatric Treatment and the Task Force on Psychiatric Services for Addicted Patients. He chaired the Work Group to Develop Practice guidelines for the Treatment of Patients with Substance Abuse Disorders. Mirin has also served as a Board Liaison to the APA councils on Psychiatric Services, Medical Education and Career Development, Research, and Addiction Psychiatry.
As an active member of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, Mirin has served as deputy representative and representative to APA's Assembly and then as president.
"In all these activities, I have been enormously impressed with the dedication and intelligence of colleagues who, like myself, donate their time to APA to pursue goals well beyond their own self-interest including advocacy on behalf of their patients, the development of quality standards of clinical care, continued support for teaching and research, and countless other worthwhile activities," he said.
Mirin is also active in the American College of Psychiatrists, the American Academy of Psychiatrists in Alcoholism and Addictions, and the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. He is chair-elect of the Governing Council of the Section for Psychiatric and Substance Abuse Services of the American Hospital Association.
Mirin maintains a clinical practice focused on the psychotherapeutic and pharmacologic treatment of patients with severe or persistent mental illness.
"I believe that clinical experience is essential to informed decision making in any organization that represents the interests of clinicians and plays a leadership role in advocating on behalf of patients and attempts to influence public policy in the care of the mentally ill."
His clinical positions at McLean Hospital include chief of the Clinical Evaluation Service (1982-83), director of the Drug Dependency Treatment Program (1979-82), and director of the Outpatient Psychopharmacology Service (1977-82).
Mirin also served as medical director of Westwood Lodge Hospital in Westwood, Mass., from 1983 to 1988.
His research interests include the psychological, behavioral, and psychologic concomitants of drug intoxication and withdrawal and the epidemiology and clinical significance of comorbid psychopathology and gender differences in these patients and their first-degree relatives.
His research and clinical work has resulted in the publication of about 130 professional papers and book chapters. He has also authored and edited seven books including the recent volume Psychiatric Treatment: Advances in Outcome Research. Moreover, Mirin received the Presidential Award for Research from the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems in 1991.
He has also been a reviewer and editorial board member of numerous psychiatric journals and is currently co-editor of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry.
(Psychiatric News, December 6, 1996)