Tarrant County AFP inducts new officers
Members of the Tarrant County Academy of Family Physicians installed a new slate of officers at their meeting on Feb. 7, 2009. From left to right: Outgoing President Kevin Kuenstler, M.D., of Fort Worth; President James Terry, M.D., of Bedford; Secretary-Treasurer Lesca Hadley, M.D., of Cleburne; and President-elect Mike Jutras, M.D., of Bedford. Program Chairman Craig Freyer, M.D., of Fort Worth, is not pictured.
MacClements named UTHSCT department head
TAFP member Jonathan MacClements, M.D., has been named chairman of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler. MacClements is also an associate professor, director of medical education and program director of the family medicine residency program. MacClements succeeds Richard Viken, M.D., who served as chair for 16 years.
MacClements received his medical degree from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1989. He received additional training in general medicine and ear, nose and throat surgery at the University of Pretoria, and completed a family medicine residency at UTHSCT in 1996.
In addition to his position within the residency program, MacClements is a Senior Aviation Medical Examiner, serves as the health authority for the North East Texas Public Health Department Board, and volunteers as a lieutenant colonel in the Texas Medical Rangers.
TAFP leaders appointed to state cancer board
TAFP members Mark Chassay, M.D., of Austin and Leo Cigarroa, M.D., of Laredo have been named to the Scientific and Prevention Advisory Council of the new Cancer Prevention and Research Institute. As members of the 20-person council, Chassay and Cigarroa will collect current information on innovative research on the prevention, control and cure of cancer, and on treatment programs to prevent and control cancer.
The council will present this information at least twice a year to the institute’s oversight committee, which manages the $3-billion fund for cancer research and prevention set aside by the 80th Legislative Session and approved by voters in November 2007. Members serve two-year terms.
Yoakum physician named Country Doctor of the Year
David Watson, M.D.
TAFP life member David Watson, M.D., of Yoakum, has been named the 2008 Country Doctor of the Year. Sponsored by Staff Care, the largest physician staffing service in the country, the annual award is presented to a primary care physician who best exemplifies the spirit, skill and dedication of rural physicians.
At 78, Watson certainly typifies this spirit. He has been practicing in Yoakum since 1958—current population 6,000—when he charged patients $3 for an office visit and $5 for a house call. He would also accept a pie, the haunch of a deer, a bushel of pecans or other payment in kind for his services, according to a press release from Staff Care. Watson moved to Yoakum directly after medical school at Baylor College of Medicine and, after 50 years, is still treating patients at the Yoakum Medical Clinic, the local hospital and nursing home, the Bluebonnet Youth Ranch, and through house calls.
“Most specialists aren’t going to come to a rural community, so if you don’t have a family physician or internist, the patients have to go out of town for care,” Watson says, speaking about the important role family physicians play, especially in rural areas. “When they go out of town, they also tend to shop in these other towns, which takes even more money out of the community.”
“Country doctors like Dr. Watson are the glue that keeps small towns together,” Staff Care President Tim Boes said in the release. “They are vital to patient care, and by keeping local hospitals open they also help ensure the economic viability and sometimes the very survival of their communities. Country doctors are a resource rural America literally cannot afford to do without.”
As the 2008 Country Doctor of the Year, Watson received a two-week vacation as Staff Care provided a temporary physician to fill in for him at no charge. He also received a plaque featuring a country doctor making his rounds on a horse and buggy, an engraved stethoscope and a monogrammed lab coat.
Report from 2009 C. Frank Webber Lectureship
Family doctors unite in Austin
Almost 350 physicians, residents and students gathered at the Hilton Austin Airport to attend this year’s C. Frank Webber Lectureship and Interim Session March 13-14, 2009. The busy weekend was filled with CME lectures and TAFP business meetings.
CME topics mirrored the full scope of issues facing practicing family physicians, ranging from lectures on successful migraine management to implementing a diabetes registry in family physicians’ offices, plus an ethics lecture on “Avoiding the Courthouse: 10 Practice Pitfalls.”
TAFP hosted the 19th annual Texas Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Students Saturday, which combined lectures tailored for future family physicians with an interactive resident-led Residency and Procedures fair. Morning lecture topics concentrated on how to start a new practice and the skills to sustain it. That afternoon, students and residents switched gears as residency programs from around Texas showed students the full scope of family medicine through hands-on procedure demonstrations. Students practiced simulations of joint injections, ultrasounds, circumcisions and others.
During TAFP commission, committee, section and task force meetings, TAFP members developed policy to guide the Academy. The TAFP Foundation Board discussed a more effective way to fund family medicine research. They established a research endowment, which will be funded by a new Family Medicine Research Champion program. At the Commission on Legislative and Public Affairs meeting, TAFP CEO Tom Banning gave an update on the 81st Texas Legislature, now in full swing, highlighting bills of importance to the specialty on real-time claims adjudication, a physician loan repayment program, scope of practice, and Medicaid and CHIP. The Commission on Membership and Member Services approved a new award, the Special Constituencies Leadership award, to honor a special constituent who has demonstrated leadership and service to the Academy and his or her community.
The TAFP Board of Directors meeting concluded the weekend when board members heard all of the reports and recommendations from TAFP’s business meetings. Board members got a special treat as TAFP debuted a video invitation to Annual Session that contained footage from the weekend’s activities. To view it, go to the TAFP Web site: www.tafp.org/news/stories/isvid.asp. Read the Interim Session Minutes in Brief on page 28.
Mark your calendars now to join TAFP for the next C. Frank Webber Lectureship on March 5, 2010. Also plan to join TAFP for its largest symposium, the 60th Annual Session and Scientific Assembly, July 15-19, 2009 at the Sheraton Arlington Hotel and Arlington Convention Center. In the fall, TAFP will host the 2009 Primary Care Summit Oct. 23-25 at the Westin Oaks hotel in Houston.