Butler receives TMA Distinguished Service Award
Max C. Butler, M.D., right, receives TMA’s Distinguished Service Award from fellow TAFP member, D. Clifford Burross, M.D., last year’s recipient.
A Houston family physician who has spent nearly 50 years treating patients has received the Texas Medical Association’s highest honor. TAFP life member Max Butler, M.D., was awarded the TMA Distinguished Service Award at the TexMed 2008 conference in May.
“The most gratifying part of my life has been my long-standing relationship with my patients,” Butler said in a TMA press release. “In some families I have cared for five generations. There is a closeness that is rewarding to me, 10 times over.”
According to the release, Butler began practicing medicine in Giddings in 1959 and is known for dedicating his career to serving his patients. He is also known for his role in the physician licensure process. Butler was appointed to positions within the Texas Medical Board by three governors, served as TMB president, and served on committees of the Federation of State Medical Boards and the United States Medical Licensure Examination, the test physicians must pass to receive a medical license.
Butler was nominated for the award by the Harris County Medical Society and chosen by the TMA Board of Councilors. In the board report, the councilors said of the physician: “He has provided outstanding leadership to the medical profession and exemplifies the meritorious achievement in medical science, public service and service to the medical profession recognized by the Distinguished Service Award.”
Besides serving as TMA president, he also served in leadership roles in TAFP and AAFP. He has been a member of TAFP since 1962.
Texas residency programs awarded for child immunization efforts
Two Texas residency programs, the Waco Family Medicine Residency Program and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Family Medicine Residency Program, have been named winners of 2008 AAFP Foundation Wyeth Immunization Awards.
These awards recognize residency programs that have benefited their communities by identifying and creating new and creative solutions to solve childhood immunization problems. Winners were selected by a panel appointed by the AAFP Foundation.
The Waco Family Residency Program won the award under the Best Practices category that recognizes overall achievement of existing systems to address immunization barriers and achieve high rates within a certain time frame, according to award specifications. The Waco Family Residency Program updated their electronic health record and set it to generate daily immunization compliance reports, which highlight missed opportunities for immunizations, and print monthly recall letters to remind parents when their children are due for well-child visits. The program also implemented a system to ensure the nurses check the immunization status of every child at every visit.
The UTHSCSA Family Medicine Residency Program won the Implement New System Grant to be used for a new system to help increase immunization rates for underserved children. The program, in which 90 percent of patients are socio-economically underserved, proposes to implement online vaccination reporting, a reminder system for child vaccines, an incentive program for parents and improvements in immunization administration.
Winners of the awards receive $5,000 or $10,000, depending on their rank of application, an education scholarship for $1,000 to send a resident to the AAFP National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students, and a plaque of recognition. The top six winners also receive an additional travel scholarship to send a resident to the AAFP Scientific Assembly.
Family docs climb TMA ranks
TAFP’s current president, Linda Siy, M.D., along with Academy leaders Douglas Curran, M.D., Lewis Foxhall, M.D., and Troy Fiesinger, M.D., have been appointed to leadership positions within the Texas Medical Association.
Curran, of Athens, will chair a new TMA committee created to address the policy issues of health system reform. Members of the Select Committee on Health System Reform will review current TMA policies and prepare recommendations on how to best deal with the state’s uninsured population for the 2009 TMA House of Delegates.
Fiesinger, of Conroe, will chair the TMA Committee on Physician Distribution and Health Care Access. Along with Siy, of Fort Worth, the committee will analyze the trends in distribution and supply of health care providers in Texas and their impact on patients’ access to health care.
Foxhall, of Houston, will chair the Ad Hoc Committee on Managed Care and Insurance, a branch of the Council on Legislation charged with framing the debate on insurance and managed care in preparation for the 81st session and, in the interim, will provide data and testimony on the state’s department of insurance to the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission.
TAFP VP participates in national press conference
Women reveal health care wishes through survey
Melissa Gerdes, M.D.
Women want convenience and continuity in health care, AAFP leaders reported as they unveiled the results of a Harris Interactive poll at a May 29 online press conference. Topping the list of desired attributes: improved access to services and an ongoing relationship with a personal physician for their entire family. TAFP Vice President Melissa Gerdes, M.D., of Whitehouse, and AAFP President Jim King, M.D., of Selmer, Tenn., led the conference.
Gerdes and King explained the findings of the survey, titled “Fixing Health Care: What Women Want,” which polled women on their role in coordinating health care for themselves and their families. Ninety percent of U.S. adult women identified as the primary health care decision-makers for themselves and members of their family. Of these women, six in 10 indicated that the health care system is at least somewhat difficult to navigate, according to the survey’s executive summary.
Some of the results—such as the fact that 43 percent reported having to fill out complete patient histories at each medical provider’s office and 26 percent have had to inform one medical provider what the other had diagnosed—indicate shortcomings in communications between physicians that places a burden on health care decision makers.
“I think the study does demonstrate that access, continuity and communication are very important aspects of our health care system from the patients’ perspective,” Gerdes said. “Furthermore, the delivery of these aspects by the health care system is not consistent, and sometimes not existent.”
Austin physician selected for Olympic medical staff
C. Mark Chassay, M.D.
TAFP member C. Mark Chassay, M.D., head physician for athletics at the University of Texas at Austin, has been appointed to the United States Olympic Committee medical staff for the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, China, Aug. 8-24.
“I have always wanted to have a chance to work with the Olympic committee,” Chassay told TexasSports.com, the official Web site of UT Athletics. “I have always wanted to volunteer my efforts to my country and at the same time challenge myself to perform at a high level.”
Chassay has worked as a team physician at UT since 1996 and became head physician in 2008. He is the co-founder of Texas Sports & Family Medicine, PLLC, where he practices in Austin.
His experience with Olympians began in 2003 when he spent two weeks at the Olympic training center in Chula Vista, Calif. “After that time I decided that I wanted to continue to move on and I have done so by continuing to volunteer for the other events,” Chassay said in the TexasSports.com article. Last year, he served as a medical officer with USA Baseball and USA Karate at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 2005, he served as chief medical officer for the USOC at the Visa Paralympic World Cup.
In the article, Chassay said, “I feel that my work at the Pan Am Games last summer and my job at the University of Texas have more than adequately prepared me for the day-to-day dealings with athletes, coaches and athletic trainers that I will experience at the Olympic level.”
Baylor resident recognized for leadership through AAFP award
Eddie Turner, M.D., has been named one of 20 recipients of the AAFP Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education. This award provides outstanding second-year family medicine residents with $2,000, funding to attend the 2008 AAFP Scientific Assembly, and a place of honor at the AAFP/ Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education breakfast during the Scientific Assembly.
A family medicine resident at the Baylor College of Medicine Northwest Family Medicine Residency Program in Houston, Turner was appointed in 2007 to serve as the AAFP Resident Alternate Delegate to the American Medical Association Resident Fellow Section.
Cleburne physician to represent new physicians in AAFP
At AAFP’s National Conference of Special Constituencies, Lesca Hadley, M.D., of Cleburne, Texas, was one of two physicians in the United States chosen to serve as a new physician alternate delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates. Marc Price, D.O., of Mechanicville, N.Y., received the other spot.
The May NCSC meeting brings together representatives from AAFP’s state chapters in five special constituency groups—new physicians, international medical graduates, GLBT, women and minority physicians. Delegates consider resolutions and write policy for the issues important to these physicians.