President Trump nominated Elinore McCance-Katz, M.D., Ph.D., the former chief medical officer of the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, to be assistant secretary for mental health and substance use in the Department of Health & Human Services.
The appointment drew praise from mental health advocates. After stepping down from SAMHSA she slammed the agency, writing in Psychiatric Times that SAMHSA didn’t focus enough on programs that provide direct support to the mentally ill.
“Nowhere in SAMHSA’s strategic initiatives is psychiatric treatment of mental illness a priority. The occasional vague reference to treatment is no substitute for the urgent need for programs that address these issues,” McCance-Katz wrote. Industry experts praised the nomination.