2003 Year in Review

By Veronica Olvera 

TAFP had another great year in 2003. It began with the sale of the TAFP building and relocation to a larger space. TAFP weathered the storms at the Capitol this spring and doctors came away with a prompt pay bill and tort reform. The summer brought a successful Annual Session in Dallas. As the year draws to a close, we are preparing for another successful year. The year 2004 promises to bring a revamped InternetCME, Annual Session in The Woodlands and an exciting Future of Family Medicine conference in February. We’ve compiled the highlights from 2003. Thank you for your continued membership.

TAFP EDUCATION PROGRAM

The Texas Academy of Family Physicians continues to enhance its position as a major CME provider. In 2003, TAFP’s educational programs reached over 18,500 primary care medical professionals through its CME activities. 

This year’s five annual CME symposia reached 1,100 family physicians. The programs included the TAFP’s 29th Annual Winter Symposium; the C. Frank Webber, M.D. Lectureship; the Primary Care Update, presented at the annual TexMed Meeting; the Houston-based Primary Care Summit; and the 54th TAFP Annual Session and Scientific Assembly. Symposia planners were especially pleased with the conferences’ affordability.

“In today’s economy, prices keep going up and in 2003 we were able to offer the same, if not lower, registration fees and we plan to do the same in 2004,” says Anna Jenkins, symposia planner.

PrimeCME and other TAFP CME activities reached an additional 17,400 primary care medical professionals. This included over 750 activities in 155 communities, presenting 1,004 hours, on 57 topics. PrimeCME showed a significant increase in operations increasing from 325 PrimeCME activities in 2002 to over 750 in 2003. A very positive view of the PrimeCME program is reflected the average evaluation score of 4.64 out of 5.0.

InterNetCME got a needed boost with the approval of a new e-learning vendor and a new approach. The plans call for transferring current ICME lectures to the new platform and to ask speakers and supporters of our recorded lectures to work with TAFP to add these lectures to the new InterNetCME. The new site will feature an exciting new look with expanded viewing area and new user-friendly functions.

For complete and up-to-date information on the TAFP Education Program, visit the TAFP Web site, www.tafp.org.

 

MEMBERSHIP

Throughout 2003, TAFP continued to grow. As of December 1, Texas has 3,682 active members and 5,381 total members. TAFP attained 100-percent resident enrollment for the 2002-2003 school year and welcomed many new active members.

The 2003 Member Survey had a response of more than 40 percent of those polled and the results were still being compiled as of December.

The focus of the TAFP mentor program changed during 2003 to better serve students’ needs. “We’re in the process of revamping our mentor program. We used to just ask people ‘do you want to be a mentor,’ but now what we’re doing is we’re asking them about their specific interests,” says Kathy McCarthy, TAFP Director of Membership and Member Services. “We’re going to be more proactive and match up mentors and students or residents based on their interests to make it a more viable program.”

Students/Residents

TAFP’s 13th Annual Conference for Students and Residents was a success. More than 70 students attended the Round Rock conference held March 8-9. Attendees learned about TAFP, parliamentary procedure, picking residency programs, negotiating employment contacts and managing debt. They also heard from James C. Martin, M.D., then AAFP President, about the Future of Family Medicine Project.

It is the Academy’s hope that conferences like this one will excite students about family medicine. “After several years of decline, our student membership has started to grow,” McCarthy says. “We had twice as many first-year medical student join this year.”

The keys to the successful program were the speakers who volunteered their time, enthusiastic students and residents, and Foundation donors. “Forty-three students and residents received travel funding from the TAFP Foundation and without this crucial financial help, many would not have attended,” says McCarthy. TAFP Foundation accepts annual and monthly donations and those interested can contact the office.

FOUNDATION

The TAFP Foundation held its Chocolate Extravaganza and Silent Auction in conjunction with Annual Session. Attendees enjoyed many delicious desserts while mingling with colleagues and placing bids on nearly 40 items in the silent auction. The Foundation made more than $6,000 at this event. A print of Charles Russell artwork and President Nixon memorabilia were among the items auctioned for the benefit. There were also numerous gift certificates donated by hotels and restaurants.

“A big story in the Foundation this year is the increase in the number of monthly donors, people who give either through credit card or the draft process every month,” McCarthy says. “We increased the number of donors from 21 to 34, which is a 60 percent increase.” These monthly donors provide a stable source of income for the Foundation.

The TAFP Foundation also announced a new scholarship: the Minnie Lee Lancaster, M.D., and Edgar Lancaster, M.D., Medical Student Scholarship. It was started with a generous donation from the Baylor Medical Center at Grapevine. When fully funded, it will benefit medical students at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Long time residents of Grapevine, the Lancasters opened the first clinic there in 1953. To make a donation to this scholarship, send checks to the TAFP Foundation.

This year’s TAFP Foundation Philanthropist of the Year Award went to Leah Raye Mabry, M.D. She was honored at Annual Session with this award for the second time for her generosity and leadership. There were nine medical student scholarships awarded in 2003. The Valley Chapter Scholarship had three recipients this year: Patricia Santistevan of UTHSC San Antonio, Preeti Malik, M.D., a first-year resident at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Family Practice Residency Program and Delfino Garza of UTHSC San Antonio. Weslei Rice from UT Southwestern received the first Tarrant County Chapter Scholarship. Steven Dennis of UTMB Galveston was awarded the Weldon G. Kolb, M.D., Medical Student Scholarship. The Harold T. Pruessner, M.D., Medical Student Scholarship went to Laura K. Hillner of UTHSC Houston and Shanna Baseme Shahid of Baylor College of Medicine. Amber Featherstone of UT Southwestern was awarded the William F. Ross, M.D., Medical Student Scholarship. David Clifford White, M.D., received the S. Perry Post, M.D., Medical Student Scholarship.

 
 

ADMINISTRATION

During 2003, the Academy’s administration staff focused on accounting and financial processes. The administration finalized the change from the calendar cycle to a fiscal year and upgraded the accounting system. We also focused on encouraging TAFP members to serve on committees of other associations such as the Texas Medical Association and in the public health arena. Director of Administration, John Ashbaugh says 2003 was dedicated to recruiting strong leaders and encouraging involvement with TAFP.

“We made a really hard push this year to get better attendance at commission and committee meetings. We tried to appoint people that we thought would have the time and availability to attend meetings,” Ashbaugh says. “We tried to get people who were really, truly interested in being on the board of directors.”

As in the past, TAFP grew and three new employees were hired. For the future, the administration is looking to acquire land or a building for TAFP offices — a project that may take four or five years.

LEADERSHIP

Robert Hogue, M.D., of Brownwood completed his year as president and was succeeded by F. David Schneider, M.D., MSPH. Officers inducted at the 2003 Annual Session are Erica W. Swegler, president-elect; Linda M. Siy, vice-president; Samuel T. Coleridge, D.O., treasurer; and Douglas Curran, M.D., parliamentarian.

The Physician Emeritus award was given to two deserving physicians: Charles A. Rush, M.D., of Hurst, and Robert Rakel, M.D., of Houston. The Family Physician of the Year Award went to Louis B. Hughes, M.D., of Baytown.

LEGISLATIVE ADVOCACY

Along with the successes at the Capitol, the Academy through its political action committee had a great time honoring those deserving leaders whose work is invaluable to the family physicians of Texas. TAFPPAC recognized Roland Goertz, M.D., of Waco, with the annual award for going beyond the call of duty to advocate for family practice and the patients. Sen. Bob Deuell, M.D., was presented with the Patient Advocacy Award at the Annual Session. Sen. Bill Ratliff was also given the Patient Advocacy Award and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst was tapped to receive the Presidential Award of Merit. Among the legislative successes this year is the passage of prompt pay and tort reform legislation.

PUBLIC RELATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS

During 2003, the communications staff worked to achieve its goal of making Texas Family Physician a more relevant and engaging magazine, with better artwork, more expert writers and topics important to our members. There’s nothing like a legislative year to help meet that goal.

In fact, there was so much news to cover that we decided to add a good bit of it on our Web site. We wanted to make the site a place physicians would want to visit more regularly. For the past several months, the front page of the site has been updated with a new story almost weekly. The stories have links to more news sites and resources. Some stories included the ever-changing implementation date of the HIPAA Transaction and Code Set Standards and how ABFP rolled out its new maintenance of certification process to mixed reviews.

Many of the stories were also incorporated into the monthly HTML electronic newsletter, QuickInfo. Typically, a few paragraphs from the latest Web news story were included as well as a link leading to the TAFP Web page for the rest of the story. This increased the site’s visibility to the general membership.

We also started a free news clip service to which members can subscribe and receive a free weekly digest of articles from newspapers across the state that TAFP puts together and sends via email. The headlines include stories collected each day for the TAFP News page. The program concluded its first trial run in November and now boasts more than 300 subscribers.

 
 

TAFP STAFF

The TAFP staff grew as a team over the past year. Following is the staff listed with their positions:

Jim White, Executive Director

John Ashbaugh, Director of Administration

Tom Banning, Director of Legislative and Public Affairs

William Jackson, Information Technology Manager

Anna Jenkins, CME Symposia Planner

JoAnn Kindinger, Director of Education

Rachel Kohls, PrimeCME Planner/CME Symposia Planner

Rebecca Krauss, PrimeCME Planner

Kathy McCarthy, Director of Member Services

Jessica Miley, CME Coordinator

Robert Montoya, Financial Manager

Nathan Moore, Marketing Associate

Jonathan Nelson, Communications Specialist

Paige Newman, Membership Coordinator

Esmond Nwokeji, Education Assistant

Mary Petachenko, Receptionist

Kelly Welch, PrimeCME Planner

Sabina Winters, PrimeCME Assistant