John F. “Jack” McDermott, M.D. is emeritus professor at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine, where he chaired the Department of Psychiatry and founded the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry program. Internationally, he has headed the Child Psychiatry Section of the World Psychiatric Association, and in a collaborative project with the University of Indonesia, trained the first practitioner/teachers of child psychiatry for Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world. Jack has published numerous books and articles in the field and served as editor of The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The AACAP recently established the John F. McDermott Assistant Editor in Residence at the Journal for a young child and adolescent psychiatrist chosen in a national competition.

 

Last year, Dr. McDermott received the AACAP’s Jeanne Spurlock Award and delivered the Spurlock Lecture on Diversity and Culture.

This plenary addresses the multi cultural experience AACAP members and their families have had during the Annual Meeting in Honolulu. Rejecting the James Michener ‘melting pot’ metaphor, it describes the process of mixing of a series of differing ethno-cultural identities into a Hawaiian ‘stewpot’. The mixing process —from biracial to multiracial to multicultural—is traced historically and psychologically, describing some of the racial/cultural tensions along the way.

America is rapidly changing. Population projections tell us that by 2050 the white majority will be replaced by a plurality of minority groups. Strategic models are needed to plan for this new makeup of our country so that diversity is accompanied by connectedness. The Hawai'i experience offers one such model. The late John F. Kennedy said it best: