Philly touts Superbowl year for the Chapter!
From quality education to career opportunities and networking, the Philadelphia Chapter of PaPS is having a winning year. Don’t miss this line up.
Chapter Spotlight – Philadelphia by Heather Varughese John, MD, FAPA
The Eagles may not have been in the Superbowl this year, but the PaPS Philadelphia Chapter has had a lot going on to keep our 700+ chapter members (including 150+ RFM members) busy! As we honor the past while looking to the future, tradition as well as innovation have been guiding principles for our chapter. This year’s (2025-2026) educational offerings include annual events — Addictions Symposium (October); Colloquium of Scholars (February) featuring Mind Games as well as poster and paper competitions, and Women’s Committee Symposium (April), as well as a new program — the inaugural Psychosis Case Conference (April).
To support trainees and early career psychiatrists, we launched an in-person Career Fair (September) and held an RFM Networking Event (October). The year’s social highlights included a Gala Celebrating Philadelphia Psychiatry (November) and a Holiday Networking Gathering (January). The events drew on the support of chapter members who served on event planning committees, as well as the generosity of local institutions who provided vibrant venues for our gatherings, including Jefferson, Drexel, the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, Belmont, the Kirkbride Center, and the Church of St. Asaph.
Because our chapter is so large, relatively few of us know each other, so we are in the midst of trying to address that by launching a networking effort to help our members connect with other psychiatrists in their local communities. To that end, we’re seeking chapter members who might be interested in being Networking Leads within the chapter — a Networking Lead’s role would be to reach out to the chapter members in their local areas to help them get to know one another, whether by periodically gathering over meals, creating group chats or emails, visiting local legislators together, etc. If there’s a chapter member who’s interested in serving as a Networking Lead who has not already reached out, please email our chapter director, Roy Harker (rharker@nextwavegroup.net) to indicate your interest (and thank you to those who have reached out so far — you’ll be hearing from us with next steps shortly!).
Heather John, MD, PhD, FAPA, focuses on psychoanalytic psychotherapy in her solo private practice, Terra Firma Psychiatry, which is located in West Chester, PA and Greenville, DE. Dr. John’s undergraduate degree is in Human Biology, from Stanford University, and she has a PhD in History, with a concentration in the History of Science and Medicine, from Yale University. She is a graduate of the School of Medicine of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio. She completed her psychiatry residency at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, where she served chief residencies in Psychotherapy and Medical Education, and she is an analytic candidate at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia.