Southern California PSYCHIATRIST June 2025

President’s Column – It Takes a Village

by Patrick Kelly, MD

Dear SCPS Members,

Welcome to summer! I am deeply honored by the opportunity to serve as your SCPS President for the coming year. As I step into this role, I feel both privileged and humbled to lead an organization that has given me so much throughout my career.

I’d first like to express my profound gratitude to Dr. Galya Rees, whose exceptional leadership this past year has set a remarkable standard. And it was a fraught year, to say the least, on both local levels (marked by the devastating LA fires) and national levels (a significant political transition). Even through these challenges, Galya steered SCPS through turbulent waters with strength, grace, and unwavering dedication, to one of its most fruitful years in recent memory. Under her guidance, SCPS achieved extraordinary milestones: launching advocacy Grand Rounds at Southern California residency programs, championing numerous California State bills, and hosting the national APA meeting for the first time in over 40 years. Galya, your legacy of positive, productive leadership will continue to inspire us. Please join me in offering our heartfelt thanks for your transformative year of service.

Yet even Galya would be the first to acknowledge that no president, however dynamic, achieves success alone. This brings me to someone whose commitment forms the very foundation of our organization: our Executive Director, Mindi Thelen. Mindi is truly the heart and soul of SCPS, and we owe her an immeasurable debt of gratitude.

I remember one moment last year that perfectly captures Mindi’s commitment. The day before one of our major events, during a Zoom meeting, she mentioned having sustained a minor injury. When I asked if she would still attend the event, she looked at me puzzled and simply said, “How could I not?” That response—the idea that missing the event hadn’t even occurred to her—epitomizes Mindi’s dedication. She will undoubtedly be embarrassed that I’m sharing this story, which only further illustrates her character: always present, tirelessly working behind the scenes, never seeking recognition. To all our members, I encourage you to thank Mindi when you see her. Our organization truly would not survive without her steadfast guidance.

SCPS exemplifies how an organization can be far stronger than the sum of its parts. Even such strong individuals as Mindi and Galya would say that they have accomplished more together than either could alone. Each member brings unique strengths and perspectives that create a rich environment for advocacy, movement, and meaningful change. I extend my deepest appreciation to our leadership council members who volunteer countless hours to support our members and patients. The officers’ efforts would accomplish little without the vital ground-level work of our council members, committee chairs and participants, and regional representatives. Your dedication, energy, and enthusiasm drive our collective success.

Most importantly, I thank you—the members of SCPS and APA. While we celebrate our successes, we must also acknowledge the unprecedented challenges facing psychiatry, medicine, healthcare, and even science as a whole. These fields confront existential threats unlike any I’ve witnessed in my professional career. While we may hope that wisdom will prevail and that this moment represents merely a “swing of the pendulum,” the reality demands active engagement and continual focus. Protecting our practitioners, our patients, and the foundations of our field requires sustained effort, time, advocacy, and dedication. SCPS stands ready to continue these vital battles, but we cannot succeed without your continued support and involvement.

As evident throughout this letter, I deeply believe in the power of collective action over individual effort. The timeless wisdom that “many hands make light work” and “if you want to go far, go together” has never been more relevant. While psychiatry benefits from many dedicated organizations, I believe only through unified efforts can we achieve our shared goals.

My own SCPS journey illustrates this principle of interconnected strength. After relocating to Los Angeles, I first became involved with the Southern California Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (SCSCAP), the local branch of AACAP. Through SCSCAP, I joined SCPS’s Programming Committee as their representative for our annual joint meeting. These initial meetings opened my eyes to our organizations’ shared interests and drew me deeper into SCPS, where I’ve served as Westside Regional Representative, Treasurer, President-Elect, and now President. I also chair SCPS’s Child and Adolescent Committee, which complements SCSCAP’s efforts from a different perspective. Rather than duplicating or competing, these organizations’ complementary nature enables us to accomplish far more together than either could achieve alone.

Looking ahead, I anticipate both significant challenges and, hopefully, meaningful victories. Success will come only through unified efforts among our members. While SCPS has traditionally focused on local issues, today’s challenges emerge from local, state, national, and international forces. To fulfill our mandate effectively, we must unite with organizations at every level of influence and across all psychiatric and healthcare disciplines. Only through unified efforts can we ensure our voices are heard and our impact felt.

I truly believe that success moving forward will take a village. I am excited and honored to add my voice to our collective chorus of advocacy and change. Together, we will face whatever challenges lie ahead and work tirelessly to advance our profession and serve our patients.

Thank you for this opportunity to serve. I look forward to working alongside each of you in the year ahead and supporting the excellent work you do for your patients and for our community as a whole.

Warmly,

Patrick Kelly, M.D.

President, Southern California Psychiatric Society

SCPS/PRMS Reception at APA

Monday, May 19th at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar

A huge thank you to PRMS, SYASL and the California DBs for their support of this great party.  Special Thank you to Dr. Alex Lin!
We hope you enjoyed… !

Behavioral Health in the Fire Service

by Steve Froehlich, PHD, MFT

To understand the impact of the job on our personnel, we will begin with a snapshot of the size of the population and the physical area that LACoFD serves. (data is from 2024)

1. 3,965,562 residents
2. 1,301,527 housing units
3. 60 District Cities, including the City of La Habra in Orange County, and the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County
4. 2,311 Square Miles

In 2024 LACoFD responded to:

1. 11,539 Fire Incidents
2. 336,776 Emergency Medical Responses
3. 107,407 Other Miscellaneous Incidents

In 2024 The LACoFD Lifeguard Division provided:

1. 7,580 Ocean Rescues
2. 13,597 Medical Calls
3. 395 Boat Rescues
4. 599 Missing Persons
5. 99 Patients who needed O2 Therapy
6. Responded to 1 drowning
7. Total Beach Attendance 41,311,387

The Department’s service area includes suburban neighborhoods, city centers, commercial districts, sandy beaches, mountain ranges and more. There are 5,000 personnel working within the Department’s emergency and business operations bureaus, including firefighters, dispatchers, lifeguards, nurses and administrative support.

Just a couple more details that I believe are important to have awareness of to understand the unique environment that is the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

The Department’s Fire and Rescue Resources are:

1. 177 Fire Stations
2. 288 Engine Companies
3. 112 Paramedic Units
4. 61 Engines
5. 10 Helicopters

The Department’s Specialized Resources are:

1. 6 Swift Water Rescue Units
2. 4 Hazardous Materials Squads
3. 2 Urban Search and Rescue Squads
4. 2 Fire Boats

One last consideration, when trying to understand the culture within the Fire Department, is to understand that Firefighters work 24-hour shifts and they may be working for days, or even weeks at a time depending upon the incidents that are occurring. During the recent wildfires, an all-hands-on deck call was put out by the Fire Chief, and all fire personnel had to come report for duty. All 3,300 Firefighters, whether they were on a scheduled day off or not, needed to report for work. They were there for days and some for two weeks or more at a time. Some were on the line, fighting fire while others were in the stations responding to the everyday calls that occur within each area.

I have been working with the Fire Department, in different capacities, for over 25 years. Each year, I think, it can’t get any busier than this, and then sure enough, the following year is even busier. Our department responded to over 400,000 calls for service last year. Things move so fast that we don’t even think about what it was like when we were in the middle of the COVID Pandemic when we thought it couldn’t possibly get more stressful than it was then.

Then came January of 2025. We were still exhausted from all that came before. We were looking forward to a quiet beginning of 2025. However, this was not to be the case. From January 7- January 31, 2025, a series of wind driven wildfires affected the Los Angeles metropolitan area and San Diego County. Winds of up to 100 miles per hour created an ember cast that caused the fire to move quickly, destroying or damaging everything in its path. The Palisades Fire was the largest blaze. It burned nearly 24,000 acres in the Pacific Palisade and parts of Malibu. The Eaton Fire burned more than 14,000 acres and left the community of Altadena in ashes. There were 29 fatalities between the two blazes. More than 200,000 people were evacuated and more than 18,000 homes and other structures were either destroyed or damaged.

Our Firefighters were exposed to the traumas that these fires presented. The overwhelming sense of powerlessness against the forces of nature that were at work during these horrific fires. The sleep deprivation, the loss of life both human and wildlife, the overwhelming challenges of evacuating non-ambulatory older people from convalescent homes and private residences that were already on fire, as well as seeing the traumatic devastation to property and wildlife that our first responders feel a deep responsibility to protect.  To attach to a fire hose to a hydrant to put water on a burning home, only to have no water available. The feelings of powerlessness and helplessness are incredibly stressful for firefighters, who are doing what they do with only one goal in mind, and that’s to save lives and protect property.

While these firefighters are at work fighting fires, their families are at home without their firefighter husband or wife. The family must deal with all the things that come up in life on their own. Broken appliances, plumbing problems, carpooling, getting kids to all their normally scheduled activities, etc. Additionally, there are fears that come up for their firefighter’s safety during significant incidents. This is even heightened when the event is big enough to be newsworthy. You can imagine the stress and anxiety families were feeling for their loved ones’ safety during the wildfires as they watched the wind driven flames destroy everything in its path.

The cumulative effect of the constant exposure to traumatic incidents takes a great toll on our Firefighters and other First Responders. We have come a long way in bringing behavioral health services to our workforce, but we still have a long way to go. We also need to continue the conversations with Clinicians who may receive our personnel as clients at some point. It is important that Clinicians have cultural competence with first responders for the treatment to be productive. I really appreciate Danielle asking me to write this article and I hope that you have found it helpful in your understanding of the Firefighter experience. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions that I can answer.

Thank you all for what you do, and special thanks to those of you who are taking care of our first responders.

With gratitude,

Dr. Steve

Director of Behavioral Health

Los Angeles County Firefighters, Local 1014

Cell: 818-6456-9027       E-mail: sfroehlich@local1014.org

APA Assembly Meeting – May 2025 at Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, California

by Anita Red, MD

Every year before the American Psychiatric Association’s annual conference, the APA’s Assembly meets. This year was in Los Angeles.

The Assembly is a group of district branch elected representatives that advises the APA.  The SCPS has 4 representatives on the assembly.

Part of the assembly’s tasks are to make recommendations about issues submitted through written papers, called, ‘action papers.’ If agreed on by the assembly, these issues are passed to APA leadership.  In this Assembly’s session, issues included APA’s collaborative care model and funding for specific patient populations, among many.  Please see this list of APA Advocacy activities.

Also, our APA takes makes certain public statements, called ‘position statements.’ The assembly votes to support them or not.  Substance use, and the prescription drug monitoring program were included in this session.

The APA has a new CEO, Dr. Marketa Wills. She spoke about making sure members are respected, heard, and valued. She also discussed APA’s values and a future strategic plan. She invites all of you to participate in that plan. Please click here to access the survey:
https://www.psychiatry.org/strategicplan

The APA treasurer gave a report about the current finances and future projection, goals, and strategies.

The political action committee raises money to support advocacy efforts. Please consider donating by following this link (Login required):

Another part of the APA meeting included The APA Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of the APA. This year, with the help of SCPS’s disaster relief committee, they donated money to the LA firefighters.

Overall, the SCPS was well represented at the APA and at the assembly meeting.

American Psychiatric Association 2025 Annual Meeting

Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA

Photos by Drs. Anita Red and Richard Ha.
‘Check Presentation’ photo courtesy of APA Foundation.

SCPS Installation & Awards Ceremony (Part 2)

Saturday, May 3, 2025 at the New Center for Psychoanalysis in West Los Angeles

Congratulations to all of the awardees!  Some are pictured here:
Ira Lesser, MD (Outstanding Achievement Award) – presented by Lawrence Gross, M.D.
PER Awards: Manal Khan, MD with recipients: Drs. David Okikawa, Michael Dodge, and Jennifer Siegel
SCPS President-elect, Dr. Emily Wood
Dr. Ira Lesser and Attendees
Dr. Galya Rees and Family
Drs. Red, Freeman and Rees