The Consultation Project --
The APA Assembly District Branch Best Practice Award Nomination

The APA Assembly District Branch Best Practice Award award recognizes special efforts or innovative programs in one or more of the following categories: membership, finance, newsletter, meetings, government affairs, public affairs, special member group efforts, practice area efforts, and psychiatric emergency preparedness. The APA Assembly, which consists of seven Areas, selects only one DB from the several nominees submitted from each Area to receive this prestigious annual award. In recognition of the Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians's innovative Consultation Project, Area 1 of the APA Assembly, which encompasses all of the New England states and Eastern Canada, has nominated the Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians to receive the Assembly's 2005 DB Best Practice Award.

Much of the mental health care delivered to Maine's citizens is provided by primary care physicians, who occasionally have questions about enhancing the safe and effective treatment for Maine citizens who suffer from mental illness. To help answer some of those questions, David Moltz, M.D., Chair of the MAPP Practice Committee, initiated the Consultation Project, which pairs psychiatrists (who volunteer to provide "curbside" telephone consultation) with primary care physicians. So far, 22 members of the MPA have volunteered to provide advice to their non-psychiatric physician colleagues.

The Consultation Project has proven to be so popular with psychiatrists, primary care physicians, and patients in its inaugural year that the MAPP expects this innovative program to expand next year. For more information about Consultation Project, please contact David Moltz, M.D. at (207) 373-4330.