Michael A. Rapoff, PhD (Candidate Statement)
Office: President
Michael Rapoff received his PhD in Developmental and Child Psychology in 1980 from the University of Kansas and completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in Behavioral Pediatrics at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He is the Ralph L. Smith Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics, vice-chair for Research/Scholarship, and director of the Faculty Mentoring Program in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Kansas Medical Center, and a licensed psychologist in Kansas and Missouri.
With NIH and Arthritis Foundation funding, his research over the past 30 years has focused on pediatric pain and adherence to pediatric medical regimens. He has 88 publications in journals or books, including the single-authored Adherence to Pediatric Medical Regimens (Second Edition, 2010), Norwell, MA: Springer.
In 2003, Dr. Rapoff received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals, a division of the American College of Rheumatology. Also in 2003, he was elected Fellow in the Society of Pediatric Psychology. In addition to teaching residents and medical students, he teaches and advises clinical psychology students in pediatric and health psychology, and sees patients in his Behavioral Pediatrics Outreach Clinic in Lawrence, Kansas.
Candidate Statement
It is a distinct honor to be nominated for president of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. The SPP has been my professional home for 30 years, and I have many valued colleagues and former students who have benefited as I have from membership in the society.
If elected president, my two chief priorities will be mentoring and e-Health interventions. As director of mentoring in Pediatrics at the University of Kansas Medical Center, I see every day the value of mentoring for residents, graduate students, and colleagues in medicine and psychology. I will therefore enthusiastically continue and enhance the SPP mentoring program started in 2004 by past President Mary Jo Kupst.
In addition, I will convene a task force on e-Health interventions, for we are in the electronic age, and our proven face-to-face interventions and assessments need to evolve into web and media-based programs. We now have the opportunity to work with IT specialists to provide interventions to children and adolescents and their families in a costefficient manner via technology-based platforms.
I appreciate your support for my candicacy.