Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Practice of Psychology The American Psychological Foundation (APF) Gold Medal Awards recognize distinguished and enduring re cords o f accomplishment in four areas o f psychology: the application o f psychology, the practice o f psychology, psy chology in the public interest, and the science o f psychol ogy. The 2014 recipient o f the Gold Medal Award fo r Life Achievement in the Practice o f Psychology is Gilbert O. Sanders. Dorothy W. Cantor, president o f the APF, will present the APF Gold Medal Awards at the 122nd Annual Con vention o f the American Psychological Association on Au gust 8, 2014, at 4:00 p.m. Members o f the 2014 APF Board o f Trustees are Dorothy W. Cantor, president; Charles L. Brewer, vice president/secretary; Gerald Koocher, trea surer; Elisabeth R. Straus, executive vice president/executive director; Norman Anderson; David H. Barlow; Ca milla Benbow; Connie Chan; Anthony Jackson; Terence Keane; Ronald F. Levant; Richard McCarty; Aurelio Prifitera; Sandra Shullman; Archie L. Turner; Melba J. T. Vasquez; and Louise Douce, APA Board o f Directors liaison.
G ilb e rt O . Sanders Citation “Gilbert O. Sanders has served as the point person for developing integrated programs of psychology and medi cine in Vietnam, Alaska, California, and Germany. His leadership in psychotherapy and psychopharmacology earned him the rank of captain, the highest rank authorized for psychologists in the U.S. Public Health Service. His contributions in the U.S. Public Health Service, in the military, and as a civilian have improved the fitness for duty of government personnel, reduced costs, and im proved health care for the military and their families. His lifetime of achievement in the practice of psychology has served as a model for health care services for the U.S. civilian population.”
Biography Gilbert O. Sanders’s career reads like the return of a native Oklahoma farm boy who comes home as an esteemed, highly decorated psychological practitioner. He leaves be hind a trail of enlightened people living improved lifestyles because of his efforts. Gil was born in 1945 as the only child of Richard A. Sanders Jr. and Evelyn Barker Sanders. Gil’s father was a World War II veteran who farmed and worked in the local July-August 2014 • American Psychologist © 2014 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/14/$12.00 Vol. 69, No. 5, 471-473 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036901
post office, and his mother was a nurse. They were a religious family, and Gil was preparing to go into the ministry when he went to college. He graduated from Oklahoma State University with a bachelor’s degree in 1967 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant from his Air Force ROTC training. He was assigned to the Public Affairs office of Maxwell Air Force Base. He began his master’s degree training in educational psychology at nearby Troy State University as a step toward the ministry. There, he met his first wife, the niece of Audie Muiphy, the Medal of Honor winner from World War II. Muiphy per suaded Sanders to transfer to the Army. Upon completion of Army artillery training, Sanders was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam. John Paul Vann, senior advisor for the Second Corps, read in Sanders’s personnel file that he had a master’s degree in psychology and assigned him to develop the first treatment center for substance abuse in the combat zone of Vietnam. The military requested a treatment unit for the then-rampant drug abuse in order to increase the effective ness of the troops. Sanders’s success in developing the Pleiku Drug Abuse Rehabilitation Center was the final reason Sanders chose to become a psychologist. It was also the start of the military’s choosing to include psychologists in combat units as they do today. Gilbert Sanders obtained his doctoral degree in edu cation and counseling psychology from Tulsa University in 1974. He taught psychology and had a private practice while remaining in the Army Reserves. In 1981, he was called back to active duty, and in 1989 he joined the U.S. Public Health Service and was assigned to the federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, as director of Psychology Training and Substance Abuse. While working in El Reno, he obtained his initial training in psychotropic medications as a medical psychologist. In 1992, Sanders was promoted to director of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Program at the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. He created the first comprehensive drug treatment program at a maximumsecurity federal institution. In 1995, Sanders was assigned to the Indian Health Service by the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) in Sitka, Alaska, as director of the Chemical Dependency Unit. He was adopted as a member of the Tlingit tribe in order to improve the substance abuse program and the provision of mental health services for Native Alaskans where none had existed before. One year later, Sanders was promoted to the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage as a clinical psychol ogist providing a full range of therapeutic services to Na tive Alaskans. At the Medical Center, he made psychotro pic medication recommendations to the hospital staff.
Gilbert O. Sanders
Sanders was elected president of the Alaska Psychological Association and introduced a prescription authority bill in the Alaskan legislature. When the regional director of the USPHS Mental Health Services learned of this, he had Captain Sanders reassigned to the Division of Immigration Health Service (DIHS) in El Centro, California, as its first USPHS Commissioned Corps psychologist. Sanders created another breakthrough for psychology by establishing a Behavioral Medicine and Medication Management Clinic in El Centro. When he arrived there in 1999, an average of 78 detainees per day were on psycho tropic medications. By 2001, using psychological interven tions, Sanders reduced the daily average number of detain ees on psychotropic medications to 13. He reduced the number of detainees sent for long-term care from 1.5 per month in 1999 to 1.5 per year, for an annual savings of over $500,000. Sanders was promoted to performance improvement coordinator at El Centro, and in 2001 he served as vicechairman of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Scientists Profes sional Advisory Committee. He became the Western Re gion behavioral consultant to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. When the psychologist position was abolished at El Centro in July 2002, Sanders retired from the USPHS. In 2003, Sanders established a private practice of psychology in Oklahoma City and completed the postdoc toral program in psychopharmacology at Fairleigh Dickin son University. He was called as a U.S. Army civil servant to serve as a consulting clinical psychologist to treat re turning veterans firom Iraq with posttraumatic stress disor der and traumatic brain injuries in Katterbach/Ansbach, Germany, in 2005. Using the model he developed at El Centro, Sanders created a protocol for psychologists to
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recommend psychotropic medications to primary care phy sicians as an integral part of the mental health team. Sanders returned to Alaska in 2006 as director of Behavioral Medical Services at the Community Mental Health Clinic at Fort Richardson; he was charged with the expansion of services for substance abuse problems, which were plaguing Alaska. Sanders served as a “trouble shooter” for Senator Murkowski, who used his suggestions to propose legislation for the improvement of National Guard members’ access to federal psychological services. Sanders’s reputation as a game changer allowed him to become supervisory psychologist/director of the Orga nizational Health Consulting Office at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, which had the highest rate of attempted suicides among U.S. Air Force bases when Sanders arrived in 2008. Within one year he had cut the attempted suicide rate by 50%. Next, Sanders became senior operational psychologist/behavioral sciences program manager of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI). He also served as program manager for the OSI Decompression Reintegra tion Center in Germany, which became the model for the current Air Force Decompression and Reintegration Pro gram. When he retired two years later due to the health problems of his dear wife Lidia, Sanders was awarded the Air Force Outstanding Civilian Career Service Medal. In October 2012, the Department of Defense (DoD) took the U.S. Air Force Behavioral Health Optimization Program (BHOP) and renamed it the Integrated Behavioral Health Consultant Program and hired qualified contract civilian psychologists as embedded consultants in primary care physician clinics and hospitals. The DoD-wide pro gram exemplifies the comprehensive behavioral health care and use of psychotropic medications that Sanders champi oned. Sanders was selected to be the primary mental health consultant with the Family Medicine Department at Tinker Field Air Force Base near Oklahoma City. The most recent annual inspection report of the Tinker Air Force Base Medical Clinic cited Sanders for his exceptional coordina tion of information regarding High Mental Health Interest (suicidal risk) Personnel. Thus, Gilbert O. Sanders continues to demonstrate his leadership as a practicing civilian psychologist with a re cord of military achievements that have benefited the pub lic. S e le c te d B i b l io g r a p h y McGuinness, K. M., & Sanders, G. O. (2003, August). The prescribing psychologist— The 21st century’s most cost-effective mental health pro vider. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the American Psycho
logical Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. McGuinness, K. M., & Sanders, G. O. (2004, May). Access to mental health care in rural states: The expanding scope o f practice o f clinical scientists as psychopharmacology consultants and prescribers. Paper
presented at the Public Health Professional Conference, Anchorage, AK. Sanders, G. O. (1975, April). A study of stated concerns of secondary school students on selected animal welfare problems. The NAAHE Journal [National Association for the Advancement of Humane Edu cation],
July-August 2014 • American Psychologist
Sanders, G. O. (1978, October). Evaluation o f a manual backup system for TACF1RE [Memorandum], Arlington, VA: U. S. Army Research Insti tute for the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Sanders, G. O. (1995, December). Drug education handbook. Sitka, AK: Southeast Alaska Publications. Sanders, G. O. (1996, January). Drug abuse treatment handbook [Guide for programming]. Sitka, AK: Southeast Alaska Publications. Sanders, G. O. (1996, May). Cognitive therapy in substance abuse treat ment. Presentation at the Third Annual Native Men’s Wellness Con ference, Albuquerque, NM. Sanders, G. O. (1996, May). Reduction o f depression in chemical depen dency program participants. Presentation at the 31st annual meeting of the Commissioned Officers Association, Tulsa, OK. Sanders, G. O. (1997, October). Auditory guidance and reduction of scores on the Beck Depression Scale in substance abusing patients. Invited presentation at the annual meeting of the American Association of Psychologists Treating Addictions, Orlando, FL. Sanders, G. O. (1998). Auditory guidance in substance abuse treatment. Mental Health in Corrections Journal. Sanders, G. 0. (2001, May). Providing mental health services in a multicultural detention facility. Invited presentation at the annual meet ing of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, Las Vegas, NV. Sanders, G. O. (2001, August). Cost savings obtained by the provision of behav ioral medicine services in a multicultural detentionfacility. Presentation at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA.
July-August 2014 • American Psychologist
Sanders, G. O. (2002, January 10). The warning signs o f suicide. Presen tation at the 6th Annual Senior Leadership Conference/Division of Immigration Health Services, San Diego, CA. Sanders, G. O. (2003, July). Prescription authority for psychologists and its impact on the profession o f psychology. Invited address delivered at the 29th Inter-American Congress of Psychology, Lima, Peru. Sanders, G. O. (2003, August). Assessment in marriage and family ther apy. Invited address delivered at San Marcos University, Lima, Peru. Sanders, G. O., & Earl, W. K. (1979, June). Training/human factors implications—Copperhead Operational Test II (OTII) Liveftre Phase. Fort Belvoir, VA: U. S. Army Research Institute for the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Sanders, G. O., George, E., & Neal, L. (1980, April). Cost and training effectiveness analysis/TEA 8-80/Patriot Air Defense Missile System. White Sands Missile Range, NM: U. S. Army TRADOC Systems Analysis Activity. Sanders, G. O., & Todd, E. (1980, June). TRADOC training effectiveness analysis handbook. White Sands Missile Range, NM: U. S. Army TRADOC Systems Analysis Activity. Sanders, G. O., Rabin, R., & Bolin, S. (1980, March). Cost and training effectiveness analysis/infantry fighting vehicle. White Sands Missile Range, NM: U. S. Army TRADOC Systems Analysis Activity. Sanders, G. O., & Waldkoetter, R. O. (1997, Summer). A study of cognitive substance abuse treatment with and without auditory guid ance. Hemi-Sync Journal (The Monroe Institute), 75(3).
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Copyright of American Psychologist is the property of American Psychological Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
G ilb e rt O . Sanders Citation “Gilbert O. Sanders has served as the point person for developing integrated programs of psychology and medi cine in Vietnam, Alaska, California, and Germany. His leadership in psychotherapy and psychopharmacology earned him the rank of captain, the highest rank authorized for psychologists in the U.S. Public Health Service. His contributions in the U.S. Public Health Service, in the military, and as a civilian have improved the fitness for duty of government personnel, reduced costs, and im proved health care for the military and their families. His lifetime of achievement in the practice of psychology has served as a model for health care services for the U.S. civilian population.”
Biography Gilbert O. Sanders’s career reads like the return of a native Oklahoma farm boy who comes home as an esteemed, highly decorated psychological practitioner. He leaves be hind a trail of enlightened people living improved lifestyles because of his efforts. Gil was born in 1945 as the only child of Richard A. Sanders Jr. and Evelyn Barker Sanders. Gil’s father was a World War II veteran who farmed and worked in the local July-August 2014 • American Psychologist © 2014 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/14/$12.00 Vol. 69, No. 5, 471-473 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036901
post office, and his mother was a nurse. They were a religious family, and Gil was preparing to go into the ministry when he went to college. He graduated from Oklahoma State University with a bachelor’s degree in 1967 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant from his Air Force ROTC training. He was assigned to the Public Affairs office of Maxwell Air Force Base. He began his master’s degree training in educational psychology at nearby Troy State University as a step toward the ministry. There, he met his first wife, the niece of Audie Muiphy, the Medal of Honor winner from World War II. Muiphy per suaded Sanders to transfer to the Army. Upon completion of Army artillery training, Sanders was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam. John Paul Vann, senior advisor for the Second Corps, read in Sanders’s personnel file that he had a master’s degree in psychology and assigned him to develop the first treatment center for substance abuse in the combat zone of Vietnam. The military requested a treatment unit for the then-rampant drug abuse in order to increase the effective ness of the troops. Sanders’s success in developing the Pleiku Drug Abuse Rehabilitation Center was the final reason Sanders chose to become a psychologist. It was also the start of the military’s choosing to include psychologists in combat units as they do today. Gilbert Sanders obtained his doctoral degree in edu cation and counseling psychology from Tulsa University in 1974. He taught psychology and had a private practice while remaining in the Army Reserves. In 1981, he was called back to active duty, and in 1989 he joined the U.S. Public Health Service and was assigned to the federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, as director of Psychology Training and Substance Abuse. While working in El Reno, he obtained his initial training in psychotropic medications as a medical psychologist. In 1992, Sanders was promoted to director of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Program at the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. He created the first comprehensive drug treatment program at a maximumsecurity federal institution. In 1995, Sanders was assigned to the Indian Health Service by the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) in Sitka, Alaska, as director of the Chemical Dependency Unit. He was adopted as a member of the Tlingit tribe in order to improve the substance abuse program and the provision of mental health services for Native Alaskans where none had existed before. One year later, Sanders was promoted to the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage as a clinical psychol ogist providing a full range of therapeutic services to Na tive Alaskans. At the Medical Center, he made psychotro pic medication recommendations to the hospital staff.
Gilbert O. Sanders
Sanders was elected president of the Alaska Psychological Association and introduced a prescription authority bill in the Alaskan legislature. When the regional director of the USPHS Mental Health Services learned of this, he had Captain Sanders reassigned to the Division of Immigration Health Service (DIHS) in El Centro, California, as its first USPHS Commissioned Corps psychologist. Sanders created another breakthrough for psychology by establishing a Behavioral Medicine and Medication Management Clinic in El Centro. When he arrived there in 1999, an average of 78 detainees per day were on psycho tropic medications. By 2001, using psychological interven tions, Sanders reduced the daily average number of detain ees on psychotropic medications to 13. He reduced the number of detainees sent for long-term care from 1.5 per month in 1999 to 1.5 per year, for an annual savings of over $500,000. Sanders was promoted to performance improvement coordinator at El Centro, and in 2001 he served as vicechairman of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Scientists Profes sional Advisory Committee. He became the Western Re gion behavioral consultant to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. When the psychologist position was abolished at El Centro in July 2002, Sanders retired from the USPHS. In 2003, Sanders established a private practice of psychology in Oklahoma City and completed the postdoc toral program in psychopharmacology at Fairleigh Dickin son University. He was called as a U.S. Army civil servant to serve as a consulting clinical psychologist to treat re turning veterans firom Iraq with posttraumatic stress disor der and traumatic brain injuries in Katterbach/Ansbach, Germany, in 2005. Using the model he developed at El Centro, Sanders created a protocol for psychologists to
472
recommend psychotropic medications to primary care phy sicians as an integral part of the mental health team. Sanders returned to Alaska in 2006 as director of Behavioral Medical Services at the Community Mental Health Clinic at Fort Richardson; he was charged with the expansion of services for substance abuse problems, which were plaguing Alaska. Sanders served as a “trouble shooter” for Senator Murkowski, who used his suggestions to propose legislation for the improvement of National Guard members’ access to federal psychological services. Sanders’s reputation as a game changer allowed him to become supervisory psychologist/director of the Orga nizational Health Consulting Office at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, which had the highest rate of attempted suicides among U.S. Air Force bases when Sanders arrived in 2008. Within one year he had cut the attempted suicide rate by 50%. Next, Sanders became senior operational psychologist/behavioral sciences program manager of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI). He also served as program manager for the OSI Decompression Reintegra tion Center in Germany, which became the model for the current Air Force Decompression and Reintegration Pro gram. When he retired two years later due to the health problems of his dear wife Lidia, Sanders was awarded the Air Force Outstanding Civilian Career Service Medal. In October 2012, the Department of Defense (DoD) took the U.S. Air Force Behavioral Health Optimization Program (BHOP) and renamed it the Integrated Behavioral Health Consultant Program and hired qualified contract civilian psychologists as embedded consultants in primary care physician clinics and hospitals. The DoD-wide pro gram exemplifies the comprehensive behavioral health care and use of psychotropic medications that Sanders champi oned. Sanders was selected to be the primary mental health consultant with the Family Medicine Department at Tinker Field Air Force Base near Oklahoma City. The most recent annual inspection report of the Tinker Air Force Base Medical Clinic cited Sanders for his exceptional coordina tion of information regarding High Mental Health Interest (suicidal risk) Personnel. Thus, Gilbert O. Sanders continues to demonstrate his leadership as a practicing civilian psychologist with a re cord of military achievements that have benefited the pub lic. S e le c te d B i b l io g r a p h y McGuinness, K. M., & Sanders, G. O. (2003, August). The prescribing psychologist— The 21st century’s most cost-effective mental health pro vider. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the American Psycho
logical Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. McGuinness, K. M., & Sanders, G. O. (2004, May). Access to mental health care in rural states: The expanding scope o f practice o f clinical scientists as psychopharmacology consultants and prescribers. Paper
presented at the Public Health Professional Conference, Anchorage, AK. Sanders, G. O. (1975, April). A study of stated concerns of secondary school students on selected animal welfare problems. The NAAHE Journal [National Association for the Advancement of Humane Edu cation],
July-August 2014 • American Psychologist
Sanders, G. O. (1978, October). Evaluation o f a manual backup system for TACF1RE [Memorandum], Arlington, VA: U. S. Army Research Insti tute for the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Sanders, G. O. (1995, December). Drug education handbook. Sitka, AK: Southeast Alaska Publications. Sanders, G. O. (1996, January). Drug abuse treatment handbook [Guide for programming]. Sitka, AK: Southeast Alaska Publications. Sanders, G. O. (1996, May). Cognitive therapy in substance abuse treat ment. Presentation at the Third Annual Native Men’s Wellness Con ference, Albuquerque, NM. Sanders, G. O. (1996, May). Reduction o f depression in chemical depen dency program participants. Presentation at the 31st annual meeting of the Commissioned Officers Association, Tulsa, OK. Sanders, G. O. (1997, October). Auditory guidance and reduction of scores on the Beck Depression Scale in substance abusing patients. Invited presentation at the annual meeting of the American Association of Psychologists Treating Addictions, Orlando, FL. Sanders, G. O. (1998). Auditory guidance in substance abuse treatment. Mental Health in Corrections Journal. Sanders, G. 0. (2001, May). Providing mental health services in a multicultural detention facility. Invited presentation at the annual meet ing of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, Las Vegas, NV. Sanders, G. O. (2001, August). Cost savings obtained by the provision of behav ioral medicine services in a multicultural detentionfacility. Presentation at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA.
July-August 2014 • American Psychologist
Sanders, G. O. (2002, January 10). The warning signs o f suicide. Presen tation at the 6th Annual Senior Leadership Conference/Division of Immigration Health Services, San Diego, CA. Sanders, G. O. (2003, July). Prescription authority for psychologists and its impact on the profession o f psychology. Invited address delivered at the 29th Inter-American Congress of Psychology, Lima, Peru. Sanders, G. O. (2003, August). Assessment in marriage and family ther apy. Invited address delivered at San Marcos University, Lima, Peru. Sanders, G. O., & Earl, W. K. (1979, June). Training/human factors implications—Copperhead Operational Test II (OTII) Liveftre Phase. Fort Belvoir, VA: U. S. Army Research Institute for the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Sanders, G. O., George, E., & Neal, L. (1980, April). Cost and training effectiveness analysis/TEA 8-80/Patriot Air Defense Missile System. White Sands Missile Range, NM: U. S. Army TRADOC Systems Analysis Activity. Sanders, G. O., & Todd, E. (1980, June). TRADOC training effectiveness analysis handbook. White Sands Missile Range, NM: U. S. Army TRADOC Systems Analysis Activity. Sanders, G. O., Rabin, R., & Bolin, S. (1980, March). Cost and training effectiveness analysis/infantry fighting vehicle. White Sands Missile Range, NM: U. S. Army TRADOC Systems Analysis Activity. Sanders, G. O., & Waldkoetter, R. O. (1997, Summer). A study of cognitive substance abuse treatment with and without auditory guid ance. Hemi-Sync Journal (The Monroe Institute), 75(3).
473
Copyright of American Psychologist is the property of American Psychological Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
