Be sure to apply for Students, Residents, and Fellows travel awards for the Annual Meeting, due July 7!

• Check out the program schedule beforehand, generally available June 15th
• Generally, signature MSR mentorship events take place between Tuesday thru Friday afternoon
• Annual meeting registration is FREE for medical students!!! Plus, most of the programming does not require additional funds
• Residents who volunteer to monitor receive FREE registration (see below)
• If one volunteers to monitor, consider choosing a ticketed event, a program on a topic of interest, or an event that includes a meal
• Note that there are many venues that offer food (MSR reception, international reception, welcome reception, caucus reception)
• There are discounted rooms available for booking beginning June 15th (click HERE for more info) and AACAP roomshare options (see above)

Reflection from a resident member of AACAP MSR

My name is Jad Hilal, I’m a rising PGY-2 at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and this is my third year participating in AACAP’s legislative conference and my first year doing so in person and as Massachusetts state chief. Year after year as I’ve attended this conference, I find more trainees joining us, and each time without fail they have delivered a profoundly positive review of the experience – all to say that if I could convey one thought, it would be that you should strongly consider attending and would be welcomed by trainees and seasoned attendings alike.

It is a two-day experience, broken down into one day of training and a second consisting of meetings on Capitol Hill. We are well-prepared for these meetings by AACAP’s legislative staff as well as state chiefs (physicians) that are familiar with this process. The meetings themselves are pure passion for child mental health spun from the frustrations we bear on a daily basis in clinical practice. We spoke to the offices of our own legislators about very proximal issues such as workforce diversity, workforce expansion, and access to child psychiatry especially in underserved populations. The staffers we spoke with were legislative professionals whose portfolios focus on health policy, and as such, the conversations we held were robust, well-informed, and, most rewardingly, impactful. Indeed, we have found that the action items we bring to our meetings are often acted upon, leading to tangible change in a field where such a thing often feels out of reach.

Above all, it is an incredible experience to meet other child psychiatrists who are your neighbors with similar interests in moving the needle. The psychiatrists from my state delegation were all attending for the first time and stated they had decided to do so because they felt energized to make a difference after spending day upon day frustrated by the lack of attention and funding that child mental health receives - I'm certain that you can sympathize.  If you find yourself feeling similarly, I implore you – join us. Making tangible change of course improves the lives of millions of children across the country while simultaneously allowing us to fight our own burnout, learn more about the political climate surrounding child mental health, and grow from hearing the experiences of child psychiatrists from across the country, all in the halls of our nation’s capitol.

If you’re interested in becoming more involved, please don’t hesitate to contact me at jhilal@partners.org. I hope to see you next year.