IPA Bulletin
President's Message

IPA – It is All About Leadership

by Helen Fung-Kum Chiu

As we move to 2009 and into the new Chinese year of the ox, I would like to wish all of you a very happy, healthy and prosperous year. Many things are happening in the world in recent months, including the global financial tsunami and the inauguration of President Obama. As Charles Dickens said in A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. Indeed these are turbulent as well as exciting times for the world and for IPA.

Amidst this background, I am very happy to introduce our new leaders to you. In the recent IPA officer election, Jacobo Mintzer was elected as President-Elect, Horácio Firmino as Treasurer-Elect and Daniel O’Connor as Secretary. Effective at the conclusion of the 2009 Congress, they will join the other leaders on the 2009-2011 Executive Committee: Masatoshi Takeda as President, Jill Rasmussen as Treasurer and me as I transition to Immediate Past President. I would like to congratulate our three new officers and our upcoming Executive Committee. I have full confidence in their leadership.

With these changing times and the call for leadership in the financial markets and other arenas in the world, I echo this call for leadership in IPA. First is our Board of Directors. Please note on page 4 of this issue that IPA is issuing its annual “call for nominations” for the Board of Directors election. For this ballot, we will have seven positions to fill for the term 2009-2013. A total of six positions are open to all members while the final one is specially designated for our members who are not physicians (you may recall, the Board of Directors created these positions last year in an effort to foster even more diversity on our Board). Please consider how you or a colleague might contribute to IPA in this important way and I would like to invite leaders of IPA to consider running for these positions.

In this issue, you will see that we are also seeking a new leader for our journal, International Psychogeriatrics. On page 5, we invite applications for the Editor position of the Journal. I am sure you would all agree with me that David Ames has done an outstanding job as Editor in the past few years. His efficiency and proficiency are most impressive and remarkable. This is reflected by the steady increase in the number of submissions of papers as well as the rising impact factor of our Journal. David will step down after he finishes his second term as Editor at the end of 2010. Here is yet another way to contribute as a leader to IPA and to the field.

If you have enjoyed and learned at IPA’s various meetings and congresses, perhaps you might consider submitting an application to lead one of our outstanding conferences. While we have a meeting already reserved for 2010 (Spain) and our congress in 2011 (The Netherlands), we welcome other leaders to volunteer to chair an international meeting or congress in your host city. Having done so myself in the past, I will say it was a lot of work but some of the most rewarding work I have done to advance our field of psychogeriatrics.

Finally and certainly not in the least, IPA as an organization is heeding the call for leadership in the world. It is my pleasure to announce that we will begin a significant organizational and strategic planning effort for IPA. Our intent is to crystallize how we might continue to act as a catalyst in geriatric mental health and advance our mission throughout the world. Plans are for the Executive Committee along with other selected volunteer IPA leaders to examine our environment and trends, assess our organization’s strengths and weaknesses, and identify our opportunities and challenges in an effort to formulate a cohesive plan for our future. This will allow us to have a more strategic approach to steer our organization through these turbulent and exciting times but more importantly, to design our future and impact on the world.

As the leader of IPA, I ask for your ideas and input into how IPA might move forward —- your view of the priorities and opportunities for IPA and the field. Please contact me via email (Helenchiu@cuhk.edu.hk) or come talk to me at our upcoming meetings in Rio de Janeiro or Montréal. I would like to hear your perspectives!  

Reprinted from IPA Bulletin, Volume 26, Number 1