Advocacy - CSAP

The Power of One Voice.

CSAP’s robust advocacy agenda advances mental health policies that support the needs of the psychiatric profession, allied fields, and the patients you serve. Our success stems from the strength and collective power of members’ voices like yours.

Our policy agenda focuses on ensuring that psychiatrists in California are able to deliver the best care to their patients, and that mental health and psychiatric care are recognized as essential services within the total health care delivery system.

It takes resources to run a Political Action Committee.
Anything you can contribute helps!

Advocating for Mental Wellness in the Midst of a Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has generated uncertainty and hardship for communities, families, and businesses on an extraordinary scale. Almost no other employment sector has been more directly affected and overwhelmed than health care, and especially frontline workers in the medical care and mental wellness arenas.

Psychiatrists have had to completely reimagine how and where patients receive treatment. At the same time, the pandemic has caused a dramatic and widespread increase in mental health diagnoses and a greater need and higher demand for behavioral health services across the spectrum.

CSAP’s policy priorities for 2022 are under development and will be designed to help psychiatrists and their patients navigate current challenges. Please check back here later this year (most likely by 12/1/21).

To learn more or to get involved, contact us at info@calpsychiatrists.org

Access

CSAP maintains direct access to members of the California Legislature and United State Congress. CSAP actively engages in efforts in local, state and national arenas.

Alliance

CSAP is the only California association for psychiatrists allied with the the American Psychiatric Association.

Advancement

CSAP is leading the way in California on issues such as parity, alternative (non-law enforcement) responses to mental health crises, state budget allocations, and assisting psychiatrists with new requirements on their practices.

Board Chair - Dr. Takeo Toyoshima, MD, MRO

Dr. Takeo Toyoshima, MD, MRO, is a Yale, UCLA, and UCSF-trained general, addiction, and forensic psychiatrist. He currently serves as the Medical Director for the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s Drug and Alcohol Treatment Clinic. He is as an Assistant Clinical Professor at UCSF and the Associate Program Director and VA Site Director for the UCSF Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship, where he supervises and teaches medical students, psychiatry residents, addiction and forensic psychiatry fellows, and trainees of other disciplines such as psychology, nursing, and social work. After completing undergraduate studies at Yale and his MD at UCLA, he completed psychiatry residency, addiction psychiatry fellowship, and forensic psychiatry fellowship at UCSF. He is triple boarded by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in general, addiction, and forensic psychiatry. His areas of expertise are in treating addictions and co-occurring psychiatric disorders as well as in treating criminal justice-involved patients with such conditions.

Dr. Toyoshima concurrently operates a private practice clinic. As one of the only Japanese-speaking psychiatrists in the United States, he treats psychiatric and substance use disorders with a niche in providing psychiatric care in Japanese to ex-pats and Japanese Americans. He conducts forensic examinations and provides expert witness testimony at the request of attorneys and the courts in his forensic practice.

Dr. Toyoshima presently serves as the Vice President of the Northern California Psychiatric Society and is the Board Chair of the California State Association of Psychiatrists. He is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Other organizational associations include the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, American Society of Addiction Medicine, and California Society of Addiction Medicine.

Board Vice-Chair - Dr. Anoop Karippot

Dr. Anoop Karippot is a Board-Certified Adult and Pediatric Sleep Medicine Specialist, Psychiatrist and a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist practicing in San Diego, CA. He graduated from the Armed Forces Medical College.

He is the Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Scripps Memorial Hospital, La Jolla, CA. He was the Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Scripps Mercy Hospital, San Diego, CA until 2020. He is also the Medical Director of Snoring and Sleep Center at AKANE Institute of Allergy Asthma & Sleep Medicine / Behavioral Medicine with special interest to the care of children and adults with psychiatric illness and sleep disorders. He is currently the Immediate Past President of California Sleep Society and Immediate Past President of the San Diego Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He is the Immediate Past President of the San Diego Psychiatric Society. He is a founding member and the Past –President of Pennsylvania Sleep Society and has several leadership positions related to health care in California and national organizations.

Most recently, Dr. Karippot has held faculty appointments in Sleep Medicine, Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Penn State University Hershey Medical Center and University of Louisville School of Medicine. He also teaches residents and fellows at University of California – San Diego and Scripps Mercy Hospital.

He has medical practice in San Diego County and is affiliated with Scripps Health System, Sharp Healthcare and Palomar health. Dr. Karippot is a Distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (DFAPA), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (DFAACAP) and a fellow of American Academy of Sleep Medicine (FAASM). He has been an active member of Standards of Practice Committee of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine with contributions to several practice parameters in sleep medicine.

He has numerous publications, abstracts, book chapters and oral presentations to his credit on various topics in sleep disorders, psychiatry, and child and adolescent psychiatry.

Gov’t Affairs Chairwoman - Emily Wood

Emily grew up north of Seattle and attended the University of Washington for undergrad. She completed the Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD) at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. The research for her doctoral training in Neuroscience was primarily located at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland and focused on developing novel magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy techniques as biomarkers of neurodegeneration. She completed her general residency and child & adolescent fellowship training in psychiatry at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She also completed advanced training and research with the UCLA Center for Autism Research and Treatment (CART), the UCLA Neuromodulation and TMS Service, and with the UCLA TIES for Families program which is dedicated to optimizing the growth and development of foster/adoptive children and their families. Her research utilized functional MRI and MRS methods as part of a multimodal approach to better understand resilience to trauma in individuals with autism spectrum disorder and with a history of early life adversity.

In 2021, she departed from academia to work with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health in the Juvenile Halls. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science where she teaches neuroscience didactic courses to Psychiatry Residents & Fellows.

Emily emerged from clinical training in 2020 and connected with the SCPS Diversity and Culture Committee. There, she found a collegial network of like minds to champion equitable, diverse and inclusive mental health care and delivery. She serves on the SCPS council and GAC committee as the Early Career Psychiatrist representative and as chair of a new SCPS committee on Alternative Crisis Response.

She believes that, as physicians, especially psychiatrists, we are afforded great privilege to both witness and alleviate suffering in our community. Our professional strength comes through supporting each other and holding ourselves accountable for shaping our health care systems to meet the needs of all patients. She’s very excited to be learning from so many experienced psychiatrists and advocates at CSAP.

Emily has a husband and 2 sons ages 15 and 11yo. She enjoys food, biking, and audiobooks.

Gov’t Affairs Committee Vice-Chairwoman - Alexis Seegan, MD

Alexis Seegan, MD is an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange County, California. She is an attending on the adult inpatient psychiatric units, Director of Electroconvulsive Therapy Services, and Director of the Psychiatry Clerkship for the UC Irvine School of Medicine. She have been involved in organized psychiatry since she was in residency at UC Irvine and served as the Area 6 Resident-Fellow Member to the APA Assembly. She is currently the OCPS Secretary, co-chair of the OCPS Governmental Affairs/Public Affairs Committee, and serves on CSAP’s Governmental Affairs Conservatorship Sub-Committee. She was the recipient of the APA Irma Bland Award for Excellence in Teaching Residents in 2021.