Meet OPPA's New President & Executive Director

We’re delighted to share an exciting update for OPPA: Dr. Yetunde Akins, MD has officially stepped into her role as OPPA President, and Tamiko Murman has joined as our new Executive Director. Together, they’re looking forward to building on OPPA’s momentum and strengthening our community of Oregon psychiatric physicians.

Dr. Yetunde Akins, MD, MPH, DFAPA, is a board-certified Adult, Child, and Adolescent Psychiatrist with a special interest in community psychiatry and expanding access to high-quality mental health care. She is the founding psychiatrist and Medical Director of the Sky Lakes Psychiatry and Mental Health Center in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where she provides compassionate, comprehensive psychiatric care to children, adolescents, and adults.

Dr. Akins is dedicated to advancing evidence-based psychiatric treatment and improving behavioral health access in rural and underserved communities. Her professional interests include community psychiatry, child and adolescent mental health, interventional psychiatry, physician engagement, workforce development, and behavioral health systems improvement.

A leader in innovative psychiatric care, Dr. Akins has played a key role in bringing interventional psychiatry services to rural Oregon. She has helped expand access to advanced treatments for treatment-resistant depression, including Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and Spravato (esketamine), allowing patients in her community to receive cutting-edge care closer to home. Her work focuses on integrating novel, evidence-based therapies into community mental health settings while improving access for historically underserved populations.

In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Akins serves as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), where she teaches and supervises medical students, family medicine residents, and psychiatry nurse practitioner trainees. She is passionate about mentorship and helping to develop the next generation of psychiatric clinicians.

Dr. Akins has been recognized for her contributions to psychiatry by the American Psychiatric Association and was recently named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (DFAPA). As President of the Oregon Psychiatric Physicians Association (OPPA), Dr. Akins is committed to strengthening member engagement, expanding membership, supporting resident, fellow, and early-career psychiatrist involvement, and ensuring that psychiatrists across Oregon have a strong and unified voice in advocacy, education, and professional development. Her presidential theme centers on engagement, collaboration, and building a vibrant psychiatric community that supports members across all stages of their careers while advancing the profession and improving mental health care throughout Oregon.

Tamiko Murman brings several years of nonprofit operations, communications, and organization leadership experience to her role as OPPA’s Executive Director. She holds a degree in psychology from Harvard University and has built her career around helping organizations reconnect with their members. Outside of OPPA, Tamiko runs her own design practice, Designs by Tamiko, focused on graphic design, social media, and hand-lettering. She is honored to partner with OPPA’s Executive Council and Dr. Akins to support Oregon’s psychiatric physicians and looks forward to getting to know members across the state. You can contact her anytime at exec@oregonpsychiatricphysicians.org.

The OPPA strongly supports the OMA Statement on Immigration Enforcement: OMA Statement on Immigration Enforcement

1/28/26
As frontline clinicians in Oregon, we are deeply concerned about recent violent incidents involving federal law enforcement activity, including events locally where a child was kept from accessing urgent medical care.

Every day, we care for people at their most vulnerable. Our exam rooms, hospitals, and clinics must remain places of safety — where patients can seek care without fear, hesitation, or harm. When people are afraid to leave their homes, bring their children to school, or access medical care, their health suffers. We see this fear in our patients, and we are concerned about the lasting impact it has on both physical and mental health.

READ MORE

APA Advocates for Reducing the Scope of the Current Clozapine REMS Program

Clozapine is a highly underutilized, potentially life-saving treatment for patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia and among prescribers the Clozapine REMS system is perceived as an obstacle to increasing clozapine utilization. APA recommends that the Advisory Committee on Drug Safety and Risk Management and the Advisory Committee on Psychopharmacologic Drugs consider reducing the scope of the current REMS program to focus on education only.

Read the full letter.

Oregon Health Authority (OHA) Medicaid Division presents the OHP Clinical Connections series.

The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) Medicaid Division warmly invites you to the OHP Clinical Connections series. Designed specifically for clinicians, such as nurse practitioners, oral health clinicians, doctors, and physician assistants, this new quarterly series will serve as a platform to:

Engage in dialogue with the Medicaid Medical Leadership Team about Oregon Health Plan (OHP) program updates.
Share your questions, concerns and insights about OHP coverage and service delivery.
Provide feedback on how changes to OHP may affect your work and the OHP members you serve.
Support inclusive planning of future changes to OHP.

Upcoming sessions:

Mar 16, 2026 03:00 PM
Jun 16, 2026 03:00 PM
Sep 15, 2026 03:00 PM
Dec 15, 2026 03:00 PM

Please click HERE to register for the 2026 series via Zoom.

If you are unable to attend, please encourage someone from your organization to attend on your behalf.
If you have questions about the webinar, please contact Dan Cox at Dan.Cox@oha.oregon.gov or 503‑979‑8594 (voice and text).

'Brain and the mind are just as important': Doctors say there's a connection between your physical and mental health

"They are interdependent and increasingly over the past several years there's been an appreciation that the head is actually connected to the body, and that the brain and the mind are just as important as any other organ system," said Regence Executive Medical Director of Behavioral Health, Dr. Mike Franz.

Learn more from KGW8.

Since 1966, the Oregon Psychiatric Physicians Association has served as the organization for medical doctors in Oregon specializing in the treatment of mental disorders.

OPPA educates the public on mental health issues, advocates on behalf of members and their patients at the State Legislature, provides quality continuing medical education programs, and serves as a resource to mental health professionals.

OPPA is a district branch of the American Psychiatric Association. OPPA is also affiliated with the Oregon Psychiatrists Political Action Committee.

Oregon's leading organization for medical doctors

specializing in psychiatry