As an independent practitioner and Director of Training at Notre Dame de Namur University Counseling Services, I recognize APA as a vital professional connection. My service within APA has been focused on the integration of practice, science, and public interest particularly in Divisions 42 & 35. Within Div 42, I served as program committee member in 2007 & 2008. Within Div 35, I served as Psychotherapy of Women Award chair, Program co-chair, and Asian American Women’s Concerns Committee task force chair & Division CEMA representative. I hold membership with APA Divisions 35, 42 & 52, Asian American Psychological Association, California Psychological Association, and San Mateo and Santa Clara Psychological Associations.
I received my doctorate from the University of San Francisco, in Counseling Psychology and completed my internship at the University of California, Davis Counseling & Psychological Services. Additionally, I have completed several multidisciplinary courses, post-doctorate, that have successfully helped me in my private practice:

Through the local community college I have taken:

• Web design
• Marketing for small businesses, and
• Business plan
• Through the Small Business Development Center affiliated with the Small Business Association, I have taken:
• Basic bookkeeping
• QuickBooks
• Email marketing
• Getting top positions on Google
• Organizational skills for your business
• Maintaining tax records for your business

I strongly believe these courses are relevant in being able to represent ECP independent practitioners within a multidisciplinary framework. These courses helped make me conscious of the three critical business contexts/issues that private practioners are confronted with in succeeding in their business: marketing, psychological services, and administration.

What I will offer as the ECP member-at-large to the board of directors and members are:

• Representation from an ECP with a multidisciplinary framework
• To be a voice of an ECP independent practitioner (see monitor article volume 39, No. 3 March 2008 “making your practice click: How Psychologists can establish a presence online”).
• Mentorship (based on my marketing, outsourcing, networking, and public education experiences).
• My commitment, motivation, and dedication to represent ECP independent practitioners.
• Help to create and provide resources which can be beneficial to members

I am impressed that Div 42 created this new position. I am strongly interested and would be honored serving as the Early Career Member at large of the Board of Directors. I request your support in my nomination. If you are interested in learning more about my private practice, philosophy and services please visit my website at www.doctoresnil.com.

My name is Michael Schwartz and I am an Early Career Psychologist (ECP) with a full-time behavioral health and neuropsychological practice. I have been a part of Division 42 since beginning my practice in January 2005 and have been a vocal participant on the listserv in both asking difficult practice questions of my peers and teaching others what I know and I have learned over the last few years. I also supervise clinical practice students at Columbia University as well as interns/post-docs at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. I also consult with various school guidance programs on both clinical and systems issues. In conjunction with my clinical practice I have been developing an emerging consultation practice in regards to the business/managed care/politics of psychology and the path of the ECP.

The world of insurance and business has changed radically in the last 20 years requiring psychologists to continually reinvent themselves to fit changing models of health care delivery without losing our theoretical, philosophical, and contextual concepts of behavioral, interpersonal, and intra-psychic functioning. Instead of an either/or model of psychology or medicine, we need to find ways to integrate and bridge differences without sacrificing our identities or our strengths in the process. I have been involved with this level of integration and intervention throughout my career. Examples include: regularly engaging in bio-psycho-social consultation with other medical providers, successfully navigating managed care in creating both medical and behavioral contracts, and redefining the scope of psychological practice.

In these last few years of practice as I transitioned from a hospital based neuropsychologist into full-time private practice, I was astounded by the complexities of running a business and balancing clinical/theoretical training with real world managed care/fee-for-service demands with little formal support by organized psychology and training programs. This situation needs to change immediately. I see Division 42 as a vehicle to teach practical matters not only among long term practicing psychologists, but to ECPs and students throughout their training. We can do this not only through our standard conferences, but through organized formal in-services and through outreach. We need to develop, monitor, and provide practical information in regards to practice so that ECPs and others do not enter the field with six-digit student loans and little to no knowledge about the reality of business.

Division 42 also needs to expand its mentor program. I can see this happening in several ways. First, we need to enlarge the pool of available mentors to assist the ECPs. Second, we need to create a formal buddy system not only between more experienced and new clinicians, but between ECPs themselves as well as doctoral level students. Many of us bring insights and information regardless of ours years of formal experience and these areas need to be tapped. Third, I would like to create real-time online “chat” discussion programs where the intersection of business and clinical practice can be addressed.

I look forward to continuing my involvement with Division 42. Thank you for your consideration.