Greetings. I'm eager to see what kind of a response you get as we have a very similar situation here in Dayton. Last week I sent an email to Dr. Toni Zeiss about some of the same issues. We have about 27 psychologists. Most of them are in MHS and report to their respective program managers. I work in Primary Care and am also a GS13, and the Acting Lead, so I have some say on professional issues but not really with respect to administrative issues. We do have a PC-MHI Team in Primary Care, which I also lead, and so I do write the performance evaluations for the other three PC-MHI psychologists. If you get some actionable responses, I would appreciate if you were to share them as I believe we are not the only ones in this conundrum. Ramon. Ramon Verdaguer, Ph.D., ABPP Clinical Health Psychologist/Primary Care Health Behavior Coordinator Acting Lead Psychologist Dayton VAMC 937-268-6511 ext. 2659 Ramon.Verdaguer@xxxxxx From: avaplmembers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:avaplmembers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Will-Wallace, Louise A. Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 2:29 PM To: members1@xxxxxxxxx; VHA National Psychology Chiefs Subject: [AVAPL Members] Re: FW: Clinical Practice Recommendations for Dissemination to the Field & PCS I am working with our Acting Director of Mental Health to look at our organization of psychology and I would welcome the input of all of you who have so much more history and experience than I. I have been at this VA for 19 years, but I have no other VA experience. I am the senior and lead psychologist with the same grade as all the others in our service and a bargaining unit employee. We have never had a service line and until recently we only had 3-4 psychologists. The issue is that currently we all answer to MDs (with one exception, the second SPC position who answers to the initial SPC who answers to a psychiatrist). We now are approaching 20 and 4 are located outside MH services and 1 is in a CBOC. The 4 outside MH answer to MDs that are not psychiatrists. We have had a variety of issues in the past such as getting testing supplies, being used inappropriately to do tasks that could have been done by clerks. A psychologist has not routinely been involved in the hiring of new psychologists especially those hired outside MH. We currently have 3 unlicensed psychologists (1 outside MH) and at one time we had 5 which were almost half of our total number so hiring decisions have been an issue. I provide clinical supervision but not administrative supervision to our unlicensed staff and their performance appraisals are done by MDs. We are repeatedly asked to do appropriate things such as psychological assessments for our discipline but are not organized in a manner to be efficient at delivering what we should be delivering. At one time we were a Product Line and all staff answered to the Chief of MH. The nurses, social workers and even the clerks have gone back to a service line that is by discipline and they are no longer directed by the Chief of Mental Health who by history has always been a psychiatrist. Thus only psychologists directly answer to psychiatrists so they can direct us to do anything, but cannot really direct others and it has created difficulties in organizing the services we deliver. There were some very good reasons that all the other services pulled out of MH similar to the ones we are experiencing. Those groups are larger and there was an equal or greater sized group to join with in the Medical Center at large so there was more leadership and support for the process of returning to a discipline specific organization. Our current acting director of MH is not a psychiatrist and is the first non psychiatrist to lead our MH Service Line. She is supportive, but the psychiatrists have been very adamant that the Chief hired be a psychiatrist and there is resistance to us having a separate service or section. Our current acting has asked me to get some input she can use to help us determine a new organizational structure either within MH or outside of mental health, but where most psychologists answer to a psychologist (again referencing the 4 outside the MH service line). I do know of course that the Uniform Benefits Package outlines we should answer to someone in our discipline, so far that has not been sufficient to move our leadership and we are not much of a priority. I would greatly appreciate any assistance and of course you can respond directly to me to not clog up everyone's mailbox or not if there is need for discussion. Thanks in advance for your guidance, Louise