Other Programs 33 (open)
Lawrence A. Stone, MD Plenary: An Invitation to Think Globally About Child Psychiatry
Growing mobility of families among different countries and easy exposure to events and situations in other continents are changing the views of many of us. What before only experienced travelers or literature readers were familiar with, is becoming now fully shared, with the easiness generated by social media and technological progress. The developed world is rapidly accessing this global neighborhood view and their child and adolescent psychiatrists see another picture that had never been fully accepted: child psychiatry either does not exist in most parts of the world or only treats 20% of those children and adolescents affected by psychiatric conditions. In this context of severe global deprivation, the talk reviews basic data and offers examples of initiatives that foster collaboration, training, program modeling, and policy making that will renew our vision of ourselves; our conversion into professionals with an international perspective.
Joaquin Fuentes, a native of the Basque Country in Spain, completed his psychiatry residence at the Albany Medical Center Hospital, Albany, NY and his child psychiatry fellowship at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh, PA. He returned in 1980, to his hometown and has devoted his life to the interface of clinical practice, program development, education, research and multidepartamental community actions in favor of children and adolescents. He is now Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Policlínica Gipuzkoa, and Research Consultant at the Gautena Autism Program, in Donostia / San Sebastián, Spain.
His main focus of interest has been Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other developmental disorders, and he has been very active in the international arena, delivering invited courses and conferences in more than 35 countries. He has served as Vice-president of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP), where he is now a Counselor, and has been a member of diverse AACAP initiatives, such as its Program Committee and the current Presidential Initiative. A key advisor for Autism Europe and a consultant to ASD national and European Union projects, he received in 2014 the IACAPAP Medal as well as the maximal popular recognition his hometown gives every year to one of its living citizens, the “Golden Drum” Award.