MEMBER NEWS

Into The Woodlands
Awards, officer inductions at 55th Annual conference

By Rob Ripperda

TAFP members enjoyed another successful meeting at the Academy’s 55th Annual Session and Scientific Assembly. The meeting was held in The Woodlands at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center July 15-18, 2004. Almost 500 physicians attended the conference.

TAFP’s Annual Session and Scientific Assembly has been billed as the premier family medicine conference in the state, and this year’s meeting definitely lived up to that description. Attendees had the opportunity to earn up to 31 credits of top-quality CME. The Academy was thrilled to have two outstanding keynote speakers for the conference as well: TAFP favorite and nationally renowned Louis Kuritzky, M.D., and AAFP President Michael O. Fleming, M.D.

More than 100 TAFP members participated in Academy commission and committee meetings to develop health care policy to benefit the patients of Texas and the physicians who serve them. Topics of discussion ranged from public health to managed care issues, legislative initiatives and medical ethics. Read about the many decisions made by the TAFP Board of Directors in the Annual Session Minutes in Brief on page 43. Outgoing TAFP President F. David Schneider, M.D., said of this meeting that it was perhaps the most exciting working atmosphere he can remember in the committee and commission meetings as well as in the Board of Directors meeting.

Amid the business, learning and fellowship, the Academy took the opportunity to honor some of its outstanding members. Thomas David Greer, M.D., of Henrietta was on hand along with his family to accept one of the Academy’s highest honors, the Family Physician of the Year Award. Watch for a profile of Dr. Greer in an upcoming edition of TFP.

C.L. Montgomery, M.D., of Lubbock, was honored with the 2004 Physician Emeritus award. Each year, physicians with a distinguished history of service are nominated by their patients, peers and colleagues to be distinguished as Physician Emeritus. “Dr. Montgomery has practiced the entire spectrum of family medicine for almost 50 years,” Schneider told the audience at the annual TAFP business and awards dinner.

Montgomery graduated from the University of Texas, Medical Branch in Galveston, in 1954. He is board certified, and has been practicing medicine for 47 years. Montgomery became a Charter Fellow for the American Academy of Family Physicians in 1973. He has had numerous practices and currently has an academic family medicine practice in Lubbock.

Montgomery is an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Texas Tech University School of Medicine. He won the Faculty Mentor Award in 2001 and 2002, established the C.L. Montgomery, M.D, Assistance Award, and served as the Associate Dean of Continuing Medical Education and Community Affairs at Texas Tech Health Science Center.

Criteria for the TAFP Physician Emeritus Award requires that candidates be committed to and involved in organized medicine and have contributed long and meritorious service.

David Katerndahl, M.D., of San Antonio received the Presidential Award of Merit for being what Schneider called the driving force for research within our Academy and the Foundation. “If it weren’t for Dr. David Katerndahl, we really would not have ever had a research program,” he said.

Katerndahl is a member of the TAFP Foundation Board of Trustees and has served as chair of the Research Grants Committee for many years. A graduate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine with a masters in education from Ohio State University, he is currently a professor in the department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He was the director of research and education in the Department of Family Practice for over 15 years before recently resigning to spend more time conducting research. His primary interests include panic disorder, anxiety and fatigue in primary care.

“Under his guidance, the TAFP Foundation has given over $100,000 in research grants. These grants have resulted in numerous publications and additional grants obtained from outside agencies and foundations,” Schneider said.

A very special moment came during the awards ceremony when Schneider presented a Resolution of Commendation and Recognition to William K. Mygdal, Ed.D., for his advocacy of family medicine through developing the Texas Family Medicine Faculty Development Center in Waco. The FDC has become the model for training family medicine faculty.

“Dr. Mygdal has done so much for the specialty of family medicine and for many of us individually,” Schneider said.

“I have worked with many of you over many years and I deeply appreciate this honor,” Mygdal said.

Mygdal was recently selected as President-elect for the Society of Teachers in Family Medicine. The society was established in 1967 to advocate for family medicine educators and currently has over 4,000 members.

The first ever TAFP Exemplary Teaching Award was given this year to Lynda DeArmond, M.D., of Waco. The award is modeled after AAFP’s award of the same name and honors individuals with outstanding teaching skills or individuals who have developed and implemented innovative teaching models. “Dr. DeArmond … makes the combination of education and clinical experience a priority for the students and residents she teaches,” Schneider said.

DeArmond served as the associate director of the Corpus Christi Family Practice Residency Program and was nominated by members of theprogram there. Recently she accepted the position of residency director at the McLennan County Medical Education Foundation Family Practice

Residency Program in Waco. She is a graduate of the Texas Tech School of Medicine and completed her residency in Odessa.

The Commission on Academic Affairs voted to honor DeArmond and as the winner of the Texas award she will be nominated for the AAFP award next year.

Stephen Benold, M.D., president of the TAFP Foundation named Roland Goertz, M.D., of Waco the Foundation’s choice for the Texas Philanthropist of the Year Award. The award was initiated in 1995 to recognize physicians whose contributions have made a significant impact in fulfillment of the TAFP Foundation mission. Goertz will be presented as a candidate to the AAFP for the National Philanthropist Award.

“Each year we recognize an individual who has gone over and beyond the call of duty in contributing to the Foundation, this person is our Philanthropist of the Year,” Benold said.

Goertz is a member of the TAFP Foundation Board of Trustees and has donated through the monthly donor program for over 10 years. He graduated from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio in 1981, completed his family practice residency training at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, and earned a faculty development fellowship at the McLennan County Medical Education and Research Foundation in Waco. Goertz is the president of the McLennan County Medical and Research Foundation and is also a clinical associate professor of family and community medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

Goertz has served on numerous local, state and national organizations including AAFP’s Commission on Education and TMA’s Council on Medical Education. “A past president of the TAFP and current Delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates, Dr. Goertz has lent his leadership skills to the Academy and the Foundation in many ways,” Benold said.

Lloyd Van Winkle, M.D., Chair of the TAFP Political Action Committee Board of Directors presented the TAFPPAC award to the Red River Chapter of TAFP for their outstanding support during the struggle to pass medical liability reform last year. I.L Balkcom, IV, M.D., of Sulphur Springs accepted the award for the chapter.

“This award has historically been given to an individual for his or her dedication to the political advancement of family practice, but in light of the Red River Chapter’s generous contribution of $10,000 to champion our efforts in the passage of Proposition 12, we thought it important to recognize the entire chapter,” Van Winkle said.

The TAFP leadership passed the torch to the next class of officers at the conference’s most anticipated event, the Installation Banquet and Ball. As the outgoing president, Dr. Schneider presided over the event, passing the gavel to Keller’s Erica Swegler, M.D., after AAFP President Michael O. Fleming, M.D., swore in the Academy’s new officers. The officers for 2004-05 are: Erica W. Swegler, M.D., president; Samuel T. Coleridge, D.O., president-elect; Douglas Curran, M.D., vice president; Linda M. Siy, M.D., treasurer; and Kaparaboyna Ashok Kumar, parliamentarian.

Henrietta’s Greer named Family Physician of the Year

TAFP awarded the Family Physician of the Year award to T. David Greer, M.D., of Henrietta at this year’s Annual Session. Dr. Greer graduated from the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston in 1964 and has been practicing medicine for 32 years.

“Certainly it’s an honor, one that I’ve seen other people receive and never had the slightest hope that I would be so honored,” Greer said when accepting the award.

Criteria for the Physician of the Year Award requires that candidates are compassionately dedicated to their patients, active in their communities and provide a credible role model as a professional in the science and art of medicine.

“Being a family physician is one of those rarest of professions that cannot be separated from the person,” said Dr. Greer’s daughter, Jan Greer McDonnell, at the awards ceremony. “My dad doesn’t put on a hat and go to work each day — he lives it.”

Dr. Greer’s roots run deep in Clay County and in family medicine in the area. “His grandfather, the late Albert Greer, M.D., practiced medicine in Henrietta for 50 years after traveling there from Nacogdoches, Texas on horseback,” said Greer’s son John Greer before his father accepted the award.

At the age of 10, Dr. Greer was tagging along with his grandfather carrying his doctor’s bag and even driving down the dusty roads to remote house calls in North Texas. Dr. Greer opened his own private practice in Henrietta in 1970. Some of his current patients were once in the care of his grandfather.

In addition to his medical career, Dr. Greer has a distinguished military service record as a flight surgeon in the United States Army. During the Vietnam War, he served in the 16th Combat Aviation Group in Chu Lai, Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star with 8 Oak Leaf Clusters, the Purple Heart, and the Meritorious Service Award from the Stars and Stripes newspaper in Europe.

Greer paid homage to his grandfather and all of his role models who showed him the true breadth of family medicine. “I don’t expect to fill their shoes, but I’m certainly privileged to be able to follow in their footsteps.”

Texas resident elected to national office

Katherine Patterson, M.D., of the Corpus Christi Family Practice Residency Program was elected resident chair of the National Conference at the National Congress of Family Medicine Residents in July. Patterson is a graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. As a medical student, she served as student delegate to National Conference for Mississippi, was on the Commission on Membership and Member Services and was FMIG Regional Coordinator. Patterson enrolled in TAFP in 2003 and is currently on the TAFP Board of Directors and the Commission on Annual Session and Continuing Medical Education.

Students and residents from across the nation gather in Kansas City every summer for the National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students. During the busy four-day conference, procedural and other training, exhibits and the Student and Resident Congresses occur simultaneously. Elections are held for student and resident members of the AAFP Board of Directors and Congress of Delegates as well as several other offices.

Patterson was the only Texas member to be elected this year. As resident chair of National Conference, Patterson will work with the student chair and members of the AAFP Committee on Resident and Student Issues to plan the 2005 National Conference.

Texas FP awarded prestigious teaching honor

Brownfield, Texas physician, Mark L. McClanahan, D.O., is among a select group of physicians honored by the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation for his commitment to education in the field of family medicine. McClanahan was selected to receive the 2004 Pfizer Teacher Development Award based on his scholastic achievement, leadership qualities and ongoing dedication to family medicine.

“We are pleased that Pfizer is committed to making such prestigious awards available to our members,” said David L. Massanari, M.D. AAFP/F President. “This program helps to recognize dedication and mentorship among family physicians such as Dr. McClanahan. His accomplishments go beyond his professional successes with an impressive array of community volunteer activities as well.”

The $2,000 award, supported by Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative, promotes interest in the part-time teaching of family medicine after residency and provides funding to each recipient to attend the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Annual Scientific Assembly, the AAFP’s largest meeting for continuing medical education.