Registration for the APNA 24th Annual Conference is now open!
This year's APNA Annual Conference will be held October 13-16 in Louisville, KY. In its 24th year, the Association's premier event will offer up an exciting array of educational sessions, networking opportunities, and interactive panels...all reflecting the focal point of the conference and this year's theme:

Psychiatric Nurses, Champions of Advocacy -
Advancing Practice, Policy, Education and Research

We'll have over 65 exceptional educational sessions, symposia, and interactive panels available; which means that you'll be able to earn up to 26.5 continuing education contact hours.  We have fun new events planned and are bringing back old favorites.  Get ready for an amazing conference! Click here for more information.

Announcing the 2010 Annual Awards Recipients!
We are pleased to announce this year's recipients of the APNA Annual Awards! Six very deserving individuals and one outstanding chapter are to be honored this year at the APNA 24th Annual Conference. They will be recognized throughout the conference following the keynote presentations. Please join us in extending congratulations to:

Kathleen Buckwalter, PhD, RN, FAAN - Psychiatric Nurse of the Year
Dawn Vanderhoef, DNP, RN, PMHNP/CNS-BC - Award for Innovation – Individual
Minnesota Chapter; Judi Sateren, President - Award for Innovation – Chapter
Sherry Davis, RN - Award for Excellence in Practice – RN-PMH
Lora Beebe, PhD, PMHNP-BC - Award for Excellence in Research
Michael Rice, PhD, APRN, BC, FANN - Award for Excellence in Education
Mary Rosedale, PhD, PMHNP-BC, NEA-BC - Award for Excellence in Leadership – Advanced

The Awards & Recognition Committee received numerous exceptional nominations this year and we'd like to thank everyone who took the time to submit one. Curious about the recipients? More information about them and their achievements will be highlighted throughout the summer... Stay tuned!

2010 APNF Grant Recipients
We are pleased to announce this year's recipients of the APNF Research Grants. Through its grant program, the American Psychiatric Nursing Foundation gladly aids scientific research and contributions which add to the knowledge and practice of psychiatric mental health nursing. This year the Foundation will assist three members who submitted exceptional research proposals: each will receive a $5,000 grant and a complimentary registration to the APNA 24th Annual Conference.

- Andrea N. Kwaski, DNP, PMHNP-BC
University of Detroit Mercy
Vitamin D and Depression: Is There a Relationship in Young African American Women?
- Betty D. Morgan, PhD, PMHCNS, BC
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Nursing Educational Needs for Caring for People with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) at End-of-Life
- Mary Rosedale, PhD, PMHNP-BC, NEA-BC
College of Nursing, New York University
The structure of the lived experience of the expert electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) nurse and their meaning of expertise

The recipients will be honored during the APNF Wine and Cheese Reception which will take place at the Annual Conference on Wednesday, October 13th from 5 to 6 pm. Please join us in congratulating these fine researchers! Click here to learn more about the APNF Wine and Cheese Reception, as well as other conference highlights, or click here to plan your schedule at the Annual Conference.

Don't Forget to Vote
Click here for multiple ways to vote in the 2010 Elections for the Board of Directors and Nominating Committee.

On June 21, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit filed by a coalition of insurance groups seeking to block the implementation of the Wellstone-Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addictions Equity Act. The lawsuit had challenged the interim final rules for the enforcement of the parity law issued by the Departments of Labor, Treasury, and Health and Human Services on the grounds that they violated the public notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. The rules are slated to go into effect on July 1. In its decision to dismiss the case, the Court wrote that the Departments had not violated the Administrative Procedure Act when they issued the interim final rules. As evidence that the Departments were justified in acting swiftly to promulgate the rules, the Court cited two letters from Congress signed by 26 Senators and 73 Representatives respectively, that highlighted the need for "specific and timely direction from the agencies to ensure that our citizens receive the mental health and substance use disorder services for which [Congress] fought." Click here to read Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis' statement regarding the ruling.

On June 24 the House of Representatives approved legislation to reverse and postpone, through November 30, the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) - mandated 21% cut in Medicare payments to physicians. President Obama signed the measure into law the following morning. The legislation, which the Senate had approved June 18, boosts the physician pay rate 2.2%, retroactive to June 1 and through November 30. Full Story

As a part of health care reform, the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) is expanding and reaching out to better serve communities in need around the country. The NHSC supports primary care professionals by offering loan repayment awards in return for service in an under served community. The organization is currently recruiting 4,000 new Corps members to receive loan repayment awards - more than ever before. This is an incredible opportunity for the interns, residents and other clinicians with whom you work or communicate, who want to make a difference in the lives of Americans who may not otherwise have access to basic health care. Primary care professionals who have completed their training are eligible to receive up to $145,000 in loan repayment for completing a five-year service commitment, with an initial award of $50,000 for two years of service. Click here to check out the program's details and application instructions.

Hospitals say many patients are experiencing inexplicable disorienting episodes doctors call "hospital delirium." Disproportionately affecting older people, a rapidly growing share of patients, hospital delirium affects about one-third of patients over 70, and a greater percentage of intensive-care or postsurgical patients, the American Geriatrics Society estimates. The cause of delirium is unclear, but there are many apparent triggers: infections, surgery, pneumonia, and procedures like catheter insertions, all of which can spur anxiety in frail, vulnerable patients. Some medications, difficult for older people to metabolize, seem associated with delirium, reported the New York Times on the Web. Full Story

A tiny start-up company might have overcome one of the biggest obstacles in diagnosing Alzheimer's disease. It has found a dye and a brain scan that can show the hallmark plaque building up in the brains of people with the disease. The findings, which will be presented at an international meeting of the Alzheimer's Association must still be confirmed and approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But if they hold up, it will mean that for the first time doctors would have a reliable way to diagnose the presence of Alzheimer's in patients with memory problems, reported the New York Times on the Web. Full Story

M3 Information,a developer of validated on-line mental health screening tools, and Mental Health America have announced a collaboration to reach tens of millions of Americans with mental health issues utilizing new internet and iPhone/PDA based applications for mental health promotion and prevention. The first project that the two organizations will be collaborating on is the M3 Mental Health Checklist, a 27-question, three-minute online checklist that accurately indicates whether a patient may have any of four major mental health conditions. Full Story

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) announced that 63 schools of nursing across the U.S. will receive funding through the RWJF New Careers in Nursing Scholarship Program (NCIN). NCIN was launched in 2008 to address the national nursing shortage and fuel the pipeline of diverse nurse faculty. Click here for a complete list of schools receiving the NCIN scholarships.

Negative attitudes about mental illness often underlie stigma, which can cause affected persons to deny symptoms; delay treatment; be excluded from employment, housing, or relationships; and interfere with recovery. Understanding attitudes toward mental illness at the state level could help target initiatives to reduce stigma, but state-level data are scant. To study such attitudes, CDC analyzed data from the District of Columbia (DC), Puerto Rico, and the 35 states participating in the 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) (the most recent data available), which included two questions on attitudes toward mental illness. Most adults (88.6%) agreed with a statement that treatment can help persons with mental illness lead normal lives, but fewer (57.3%) agreed with a statement that people are generally caring and sympathetic to persons with mental illness. Full Story

The National Council has joined 156 other national, state, and local organizations in signing on to a letter to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees requesting a $210 million increase in the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) Block Grant for Fiscal Year 2011. Each year, approximately 23.1 million Americans aged 12 or older need treatment for an alcohol or illicit drug problem - yet only 2.3 million receive treatment, resulting in high levels of unmet need. However, President Obama's budget request for FY 2011 included no increase in SAPT grant funding. The letter to the Appropriations Committees notes that services funded by the SAPT Block Grant are highly effective, with clients demonstrating high abstinence rates at discharge from both illegal drug (73.7%) and alcohol (78.2%) use.

After a 2-month period of public review and commentary, which garnered "unprecedented" response, the first phase of field trials testing some of the proposed diagnostic criteria changes to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) are set to begin this summer. Speaking at a press briefing at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) 2010 Annual Meeting, DSM-5 Task Force chairman David J. Kupfer, MD, told reporters that the new manual appears to be on track for the target publish date of May 2013, reported MedScape. Full Story Free Registration Required