TAFP’s Goertz wins bid for AAFP President-elect, plus two TAFP members selected to head AAFP committees

Congratulations to AAFP’s newly elected president-elect, Roland A. Goertz, M.D., M.B.A., of Waco. AAFP’s Congress of Delegates elected Goertz to the position at its October meeting in Boston, Mass. During his year as president-elect, he will join other Academy leaders in advocating that current reform efforts should re-establish family medicine and primary care as the foundation of the American health care delivery system. Next fall, he will be inducted as AAFP President and the following year, he will serve as chair of the AAFP Board of Directors.

Check out the latest edition of TEXAS FAMILY PHYSICIAN online for a Q&A with Goertz. You can read the TAFP press release announcing Goertz’s victory at www.tafp.org/news/newsReleases/Goertz.pdf.

Also during the national convention, Leah Raye Mabry, M.D., R.Ph., of San Antonio was elected to a second term as AAFP Speaker of the Congress of Delegates. Mabry served as AAFP Speaker in 2008-2009, AAFP Vice Speaker from 2005-2008, and is a TAFP Past President. She currently serves as chief of staff at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa City Center Hospital in San Antonio and is on faculty at the center’s family medicine residency program.

Two TAFP leaders were chosen to chair AAFP commissions. Stephen Benold, M.D., will head the Commission on Finance and Insurance, and Kaparaboyna Ashok Kumar, M.D., F.R.C.S., will head the Commission on Membership and Member Services.

Benold has served on the AAFP Commission on Finance and Insurance for the past five years. In addition to being a board-certified family physician in Georgetown, Benold is a board-certified financial planner with special training in the selection of management of investments, insurance products and retirement plans. He previously served as TAFP treasurer, TAFP president and TAFP Foundation president, and is currently the investment advisor for TAFP and the TAFP Foundation.

Kumar has been a member of the AAFP Commission on Membership and Member Services for the last four years, and last year served as chair of the Chapter Relations sub-committee. He also served a three-year term on the Committee on Special Constituencies. Kumar, who serves on the faculty for the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, is also the current president of TAFP and carries the distinction of being the first international medical graduate to hold that office in Texas.

TAFP was ably represented during this year’s meeting by delegates Lloyd Van Winkle, M.D., and Justin Bartos, M.D., and alternate delegates Erica Swegler, M.D., and Linda Siy, M.D. For more coverage of AAFP’s 2009 Congress of Delegates, visit AAFP News Now.