Saul Levin, Medical Director, American Psychiatric Association (APA)

Saul M. Levin, M.D., M.P.A., is the Chief Executive Officer and Medical Director of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Dr. Levin is the APA’s first openly gay Medical Director. Prior to assuming this role in October 2013, Dr. Levin led the District of Columbia Department of Health (DOH). There, Dr. Levin was responsible for the health of the nation’s capital, including primary care for from infants to the seniors on Medicaid and Medicare, DC-funded health care, HIV/AIDS, addictions, health professional licensing and regulation, policy and planning.  He was also responsible for health emergency preparedness, planning and coordinating alongside dozens of federal and local agencies to ensure the public’s health during major events such as President Obama’s second inauguration.  Moreover, he promoted the development of a citywide health information exchange that connects health care providers, shares critical information to promote patient care, tracks outcomes, prepares for disasters and provides for public health surveillance.

Dr. Levin also served on the D.C. Health Exchange Board and chaired the Essential Health Benefits Package Subcommittee, where he successfully led the effort to ensure that residents of the District of Columbia had access to a full range of substance abuse and mental health services.  He also co-chaired the committee that oversaw the integration of substance abuse and mental health services into the new Department of Behavioral Health.

In 2012, Dr. Levin served briefly as Senior Deputy Director of DOH’s Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration. During his tenure, Dr. Levin promoted substance abuse prevention efforts in all eight wards of the city through the work of the Prevention and Access to Recovery teams, including implementation of over $20 million in federal grants for services, assessed and referred an increasing number of individuals into treatment services, and connected more clients to recovery support services.

Dr. Levin has long been involved in organized medicine and psychiatry. He served as Vice President for Science, Medicine, and Public Health at the American Medical Association. There, he oversaw programs related to evolving health delivery systems, such as in the areas of prevention and health care disparities. He also led efforts to improve the interface between clinical medicine and public health.

Among other positions Dr. Levin has held includes serving as a special expert appointee in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he led the initiative to integrate primary care, substance abuse, mental health, and HIV/AIDS response. While serving as President for Access Consulting International Inc., he worked with federal, state, and local governments and private companies to provide health policy, program, and research and evaluation services.

He is a former President and CEO of Medical Education for South African Blacks, an anti-apartheid education trust that provided scholarships to South African black students in health care. He helped award more than 11,000 scholarships to students studying to become physicians, nurses, substance abuse counselors and other health care professionals.

In 1982, Dr. Levin received his M.B.B.Ch. (M.D.) from the University Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and completed his residency in psychiatry at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center. In 1994, he received his master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians – Edinburgh, and Clinical Professor at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington DC.