Dear APA Colleagues,
I am writing to you in support of the candidacy for APA President of a distinguished psychiatrist, Dr. Barton J. Blinder.
I warmly encourage you to vote in this election and let your voice be counted. As a Canadian psychiatrist who is board-certified in the USA and has attended APA meetings and institutes for decades, as immediate past-president of the APA Quebec and Eastern Canada District Branch and as current Representative to the APA Assembly, I want to strongly recommend Dr. Blinder as APA President.
I have known Dr. Blinder for some 25 years, having reviewed his seminal text on eating disorders and then meeting him at various conferences in the field of eating disorders where he is held is very high esteem. I started following his diverse and important contributions as a psychiatrist which demonstrate the depth and breadth of his understanding of our field in a time of narrow specialization.
Working with Dr. Blinder is a privilege and a pleasure which has enriched our colleagues and me at key national and international conferences and at the APA Assembly. All this has allowed me to pursue a lively exchange with Dr. Blinder on many matters related to the theory, practice and teaching of our profession. Very few psychiatrists have shown his depth of understanding, scope of practice, and clear-minded grasp of the issues at stake.
To all this, I must add that Dr. Blinder embodies personal qualities that are absolutely critical for the practice of psychiatry: probity and dignity. Engaging Dr. Blinder on numerous contentious issues in my provocative style, I am always impressed by his forthrightness balanced with compassion and erudition in responding to sensitive, complex and controversial questions for our field today. Furthermore, Dr. Blinder demonstrates the integration of seemingly disparate theories and practices in our field, arguing for a psychiatry in which the mental and the biological, the social and psychological are coherently articulated in a comprehensive community of practice.
Your vote for Dr. Barton J. Blinder for APA President is a vote for academic rigor, clinical experience, and theoretical depth, enhanced by his personal qualities of probity and compassion.
Vincenzo Di Nicola, M.Phil., M.D., Ph.D., F.R.C.P.(C), F.A.P.A.
Professor of Psychiatry, University of Montreal
Past-President, APA Quebec & Eastern Canada DB
Representative, APA Assembly