Dallas doctors challenge patients to 5K race

To raise awareness about diabetes and help prevent it by increasing physical activity, the family physicians of Alera Medical Center challenged their patients to a five-kilometer race at Bachman Lake in Dallas on Oct. 31. More than 300 people came out to participate in the first-ever Doc Run 5K, including race coordinator and TAFP member Chrisette Dharma, M.D., and 60 other area physicians. Other TAFP members at Alera Medical Center are Amina Allaudin, M.D., and Sapna Jaiswal, M.D.

“Working with patients in getting them to better health means showing them that we really believe in them, and can see them set strong goals and achieve something that they might not have ever dreamed they would do,” Dharma says. “As a physician I constantly preach every day about the importance of exercise.  There is no better way to show someone how to be healthy than by example.”

Co-race coordinator James Crouch, vice president of business development at Alera, says the practice staff and physicians have set a goal of their own for next year. They hope to attract 200 doctors and 1,000 patients to the 2010 Doc Run 5K, to be held at the same time and place.

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TAFP’s student and resident conference celebrates 20 years

March 6, 2010
Hilton Austin Airport
Austin, Texas

TAFP began producing a conference for the next generation of family physicians some 20 years ago. Coming on the heels of a decline in student interest in family medicine, TAFP held its first Student Leadership Retreat in June 1990. The faculty included then up-and-coming TAFP leaders—Jim Martin, M.D., Roland Goertz, M.D., and Sheri Talley, M.D.—and had a goal to “increase student interest in family practice” along with developing personal leadership skills. The second conference was held in conjunction with TAFP’s Annual Session in 1991, and by 1993 the Student Leadership Conference had found its home with Interim Session in March.

In 1997, the conference expanded to include residents and became known as the Student and Resident Leadership Conference. In 2001, a residency fair was added to allow the students to get information about the various family medicine residencies in Texas. Procedures were added to the conference in 2005 with the residency programs demonstrating in a round-robin format. With the conference including more than leadership development, the name was changed to the Texas Conference for Family Medicine Residents and Students.

John Richmond, M.D., of Dallas, who served as chair of the conference from 1991 to 1994 and 1997 to 2007, as well as various other roles involving education and interaction with the students and residents, says that the conference helped showcase and educate students and residents about family medicine. He recalls that before the conference began, medical students had very little contact with family physicians.

“By meeting, seeing, and talking with active family physicians from all over the state at our spring Interim Session, students became more interested and impressed with the breadth and diversity of family medicine,” Richmond says. “They also saw the compassion and dedication that each family physician has to their patients and profession.”

Hundreds of students and residents have attended the conference over the last 20 years with topics focused on leadership development, parliamentary procedure, public speaking, international medicine, preparing CVs, interviewing and selecting the right residency program, plus financial management, contract negotiation, and much more. Thank you to the many volunteer faculty who have been part of the program, and the students and residents who have taken time out of their busy schedules to attend and make this program a success.

To current students and residents, plan to attend the 21st annual conference on March 6, 2010 in Austin. Find more information on travel funding and how to register at www.tafp.org/education/programs/2010cfw.

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TAFP members participate in national quality improvement project

Fifteen practices in Cease Smoking Today (CS2Day) completed 12 months of work in the California Academy of Family Physicians’ tobacco-cessation quality improvement project with a graduation ceremony held in Austin, Texas in October 2009. The CS2Day collaboratory was a national project in conjunction with California and four other state chapters of AAFP—Texas, Georgia, Ohio, and West Virginia—and 15 practice teams (three from each state). Family physician graduates dedicated their time, expertise, and resources to ensure they were providing the highest quality of care for their smoking patients and using a chronic disease registry to capture their improvement data.

A full year of collaboratory work included a face-to-face learning session to launch the project in Chicago in October 2008. Following the first learning session were 11 virtual learning sessions on topics that included pharmacotherapy, registry functionality and population management, office process mapping, youth and tobacco, and motivational interviewing. All practices arrived in Austin for a final graduation session with faculty members who presented on team-based care in the primary care setting and on the patient-centered medical home, and how team participation in the quality improvement project will give practices an edge to becoming medical homes. Particular attention to technology, specifically the use of an EHR/registry (e-prescribing, fax-prescribing, virtual office visits, e-mail) and population-based care, were of interest to the practice teams. The two speakers at the graduation were TAFP President-elect Melissa Gerdes, M.D., and TAFP Board member Janet Hurley, M.D., both of Whitehouse.

The three Texas teams who participated were Jefferson Street Family Practice of Austin with Ajay Gupta, M.D., Village Health Partners of Plano with John Moon, M.D., and Lonestar Medical of New Braunfels with Jay Gruhlkey, M.D.

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Rio Grande City physician named Outstanding Young Texas Ex

TAFP member Jake Margo, Jr., M.D., has been named one of four recipients of the 2010 Outstanding Young Texas Ex Award by the Texas Exes, the alumni network of the University of Texas at Austin. The Rio Grande City family physician received a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from UT in 1997.

Margo is one of two family physicians providing full-scope primary care in Rio Grande City. He currently works at Family Medical and Specialty Clinic, provides full-time emergency room coverage and part-time night clinic, provides hospital call coverage and nursing home coverage, and practices full-scope obstetrics. Margo graduated medical school from Texas A&M University Health Science Center College of Medicine in College Station, and completed residency at John Peter Smith Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program. He is an active member of AAFP, TAFP, the American Medical Association, and the Texas Medical Association.

The Texas Exes created the award in 1980 to recognize alumni under age 40 who are distinguished in their fields and have demonstrated a continuing interest in UT and the Texas Exes. Margo is a Texas Exes Life Member and a member of the Longhorn Foundation.

Other 2010 recipients are Sarah Aubrey, a television and film producer; Robert Hamilton, former attorney and public affairs officer for the U.S. Army in Iraq; and Sanya Richards, a world champion 400-meter track-and-field runner. The recipients will be honored at a ceremony during the university’s commencement in May.

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TAFP members, staff appointed to national positions

Five TAFP members and a TAFP staff member have been appointed to leadership roles within AAFP commissions and an AAFP delegation.

Joane Baumer, M.D., of Fort Worth has been appointed to the Commission on Education. Baumer currently serves as chair of the department of family medicine at John Peter Smith Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program. Baumer chaired the TAFP Commission on Academic Affairs from 2003 to 2006 and helped create an annual program to educate residency coordinators and clerkship coordinators.

Clare Hawkins, M.D., of Baytown has been appointed to the Commission on Continuing Professional Development. Hawkins, TAFP’s current parliamentarian, is the program director at San Jacinto Methodist Hospital Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program. Previously, he served on the faculty and as residency director at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, Canada, before moving to Baytown.

Melissa Gerdes, M.D., of Whitehouse will serve on the Commission on Quality and Practice. Gerdes is TAFP’s current president-elect. She is a private-practice physician at Trinity Clinic, which was one of 36 practices to take part in AAFP’s TransforMed National Demonstration Project. She has served as chair of the TAFP Task Force on the Medical Home.

Dale Moquist, M.D., of Sugar Land has been appointed to another three-year term as AAFP Delegate to the American Medical Association. From 1994 to 1997, he served as AAFP Alternate Delegate to AMA. In this role, Moquist chairs the group that travels to meetings of the AMA House of Delegates to speak on behalf of family physicians and promote the specialty within the larger house of medicine. He serves as president of the TAFP Foundation, the Academy’s philanthropic arm, and is on faculty at the Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program in Sugar Land.

Erica Swegler, M.D., of Keller has been appointed to the Commission on Governmental Advocacy. Swegler is a private-practice physician at North Hills Family Medicine. A TAFP past president and former TAFP Family Physician of the Year, she has been involved in governmental advocacy for many years on the state and national levels, including as a member of the TAFP Commission on Legislative and Governmental Affairs and the TAFP Political Action Committee Board of Directors, as a multi-year attendee of the AAFP Congressional Conference and AAFP State Legislative Conference, and as a member of AAFP’s FamMedPAC. Swegler was also appointed by the governor to serve as the primary care representative to the Texas Council on Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke. 

Joining Swegler, TAFP CEO Tom Banning will fill the chapter executive position on the Commission on Governmental Advocacy. Before Banning became the Academy’s CEO in 2007, he served nearly nine years as TAFP’s director of legislative affairs. He has led the effort to strengthen family medicine’s voice in the Texas Legislature and among other medical associations in the state. He was integral to the formation of the Primary Care Coalition, which includes TAFP, the Texas Pediatrics Society and the Texas Academy of Internal Medicine.

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AAFP honors new Fellows for 2009

Congratulations to the newest TAFP members to receive the AAFP Degree of Fellow. These members were recognized during the Fellowship Convocation Breakfast on Oct. 17, 2009 in Boston, Mass. They join the more than 29,000 members around the country to receive this honor.

The Texas inductees are as follows:

• Timothy Dwain Barker, M.D., of Waco;
• Lorie Cram, M.D., of Houston;
• Nora O. Garza, M.D., of San Antonio;
• Melissa Susan Gerdes, M.D., of Whitehouse;
• John Howard Gill, M.D., of Waco;
• Lesca C. Hadley, M.D., of Cleburne;
• Suhaib W. Haq, M.D., of Helotes;
• Jerome K. Hemmert, M.D., of Kingsville;
• Melanie L. Mencer-Parks, M.D., of Houston; and
• Sharon Elizabeth Tucker, M.D., of Mesquite.

The Degree of Fellow, established in 1971 by the AAFP Congress of Delegates and revised in 1992, honors AAFP members who have distinguished themselves among their colleagues and in their communities by their service to family medicine, the advancement of health care to the American people, and by their professional development through medical education and research.