Posts Tagged ‘GAFP’

GAFP President Dr. Susana Ajoy Alfonso Reflects on Her Journey to Leadership

Dr. Alfonso was sworn-in at GAFP annual meeting in November 2021.  She was installed by AAFP President Sterling Ransome, MD and in a gathering of over 100 friends, colleagues and families – she gave her first speech as chapter president.  Below is a selection of her inaugural speech:

First, I would like to thank you again for coming tonight.  I’ll start with some thank you’s, tell you a little bit about my journey in Family Medicine and the GAFP, and end with an invitation.

I’d like to start by thanking my patients who have allowed me the privilege of helping to take care of them and have trusted me to share their life and health journey with them.  You have taught me so much!  I’d like to thank the many classes of residents whom I’ve had the privilege to train.  I counted 19 alums at this meeting!

I’d like to thank my faculty colleagues who have been a part of my leadership journey from the beginning.  A few of them are here tonight and I won’t say which ones were interns with me in 1997!  I’d like to thank Dr. Ralph Peeler who stopped me in the parking lot behind the now demolished Shallowford hospital and said, “have you thought about getting more involved with the GAFP?”  and I said “no” and he said “you should think about it…I think you’d enjoy it.” That was 18 years ago.

I’d like to thank my village of friends, some of them are here tonight, many have known me since I was a teenager, who have at times literally carried me through life’s challenges.

  • I’d like to thank my mom in heaven who inspired me with her courage and willingness to defy the odds.
  • My father who loves with consistency and was never ever hesitant to set me straight.
  • My step mom who loves blindly and with her actions
  • My aunts and my sisters who in so many different ways have supported me as a mom and as a doctor, and a special shout out to my sister Paty who is deployed in Saudi Arabia who typed up my med school application because I was just home with a newborn baby.
  • My sons. I always knew I wanted to be a doctor but when I became a mother realized what my true purpose was and is, whose antics and perspectives kept me grounded…who taught me what is means to love without conditions.  You will both always be what I am the most proud of in this world.
  • To my husband who has walked every step of this journey with me, for always having a unique, practical perspective. I remember the first time having to tell a patient they might have a cancer and walking into our living room and saying a prayer that I would find the right words.  He looked at me and said “why are you praying for yourself, your patient is the one with cancer!” Thank you, Raul, for all the many years of support, even when what I wanted to do sounded crazy…I wouldn’t be here without all of you but especially you!

I was asked to re-apply to medical school after taking a leave to have a baby and was interviewed by someone who said “why are you here?  You should leave this spot to someone who is truly dedicated to medicine.”  After drying my eyes and my blouse because I was nursing and doing my second interview, I realized then and there that being a mother in med school made me different.

My own mother’s words rang in my mind, “you will always be different (she was referring to my ethnicity), and that difference can be your advantage or your disadvantage…it’s up to you”.   Three years later during my induction to AOA, when I was pregnant with my second son, the same person said to me “oh I always knew you’d do well.”

As a family physician I have had the privilege to practice full scope family medicine in an academic setting, serve farmworkers in South Georgia, serve children in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, and serve as chief medical officer of a QI and UM company. None of which I ever dreamed of doing when I started.

As your president I pledge to work to advance the goals of our academy to serve the patients and families in Georgia and our family medicine colleagues.

COVID has placed a spotlight on some things we already knew:  our healthcare system is fragmented and siloed, we have not invested sufficiently in public health and primary care and prevention, and health disparities remain even when some barriers such as access to vaccine and testing are removed.

We have just finished our three year strategic plan and like our parent organization the AAFP, none of our 5 pillars specify goals around diversity equity and inclusion as we expect to weave DEI into everything we do.  As we work together to change things at a system level and advance family medicine through education, advocacy and service my call to action is this: I invite you to join me in beginning the culture change toward inclusion.

Mother Theresa says, “not all of us can do great things, but each of us can do small things with great love”.  When you go back next week to your practices, hospitals, and communities, look at whose voice is not being heard and invite them to the table.  Different perspectives will make us stronger, different perspectives will make us more innovative, different perspectives will allow us to build more effective healthcare teams and ultimately help us.

August Committee Conclave and Board Meeting

August Committee Conclave and Board Meeting – July 31– August 2

Hotel Information:

Callaway Resort & Gardens

  • Date: July 31– August 2
  • Address: 17800 US Hwy 27, Pine Mountain, GA 31822
  • Phone: (844) 512-3826
  • Click Here to Book a Room
  • Room Rate:  $149 and up
  • Click Here for Preliminary Meeting Agenda

Deadline to book your hotel accommodations is July 7th.  Reservations needed outside of the stated dates may be reserved by calling Callaway Gardens at 800.225.5292 and referencing GAFP.

If you have questions regarding the hotel and member RSVP, contact Felicia Kenan at fkenan@gafp.org.

Day at the Capitol

 REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

Legislative Day at the Capitol 

Thursday, March 5, 2020

The Freight Depot
65 Martin Luther King Jr Dr – Atlanta, GA 30312

– New Location!!! Georgia State Capitolgi

Hosted by Patient-Centered Coalition of Georgia

Member

  Georgia Academy of Family Physicians

 Georgia OBGyn Society, Georgia Chapter of American Academy of Pediatrics

  Georgia Osteopathic Medical Association, Georgia Chapter – American College of Physicians

 Agenda

8:30 am – 9:15 am                                     Breakfast/Legislative Priorities

9:15 am – 10:15 am                                    Policy Briefing

10:15 am – Noon                                         Legislative Visits at the Capitol

12:15 pm – 2:00 pm                                   Lunch with Legislators/Wrap Up

Registration 

Click here to complete the online registration

2017 Annual Scientific Assembly

The 2017 Annual Scientific Assembly will be held at the Westin Buckhead, October 25th through October 28th.

Online Registration Closed – Onsite Registration Opens Thursday, October 26 at 6:30 am- 4th floor Prefunction Area of the Westin Buckhead

View the 2017 Preliminary Annual Meeting Agenda *Subject to Change*

The GAFP Annual Meeting App is ready to download

GAFP is going mobile with an event app! We teamed up with CrowdCompass to build an app that will make this year’s experience a lot more valuable for our attendees, exhibitors, and speakers. This app will include networking, schedules, social media and much more at the palm of your hand.

iOS Download here.

Android Download here.

Your Event URL https://crowd.cc/annual-meeting (Takes attendees to the online version of your event).

Use the QR code to access the online version of the event


Call the GAFP office to get your All Member Boots & BBQ Party Tickets while you still can!

Hotel Information
Rates at the Westin Buckhead begin at $180. For reservations call 404-365-0065 or 800-253-1397. Request the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians room block-available until October 9, 2017. GAFP Room Block is Closed!

If you are interested in exhibiting as an Industry Partner, view the Exhibitor Prospectus.

View the Annual Meeting Brochure below or download it by clicking here!

 

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Georgia Shines at AAFP National Conference for Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students

Georgia, along with family medicine residency programs from twenty-five additional states, set up decorative booths at the Kansas City Convention Center July 28th-30th to attract medical student candidates to Georgia to attend residency in our state.  Current residents from our programs were there to offer information and share their passion for family medicine with medical students, who were excited and energetic about family medicine and the future.  The steady stream of medical students visiting the Georgia programs was non-stop for three days, and our programs engaged with hundreds of prospective applicants where our programs united to create a strong presence to the students.

In addition, we had a full delegation representing us in both the resident and student categories.  Drs. Daniel Gordon from the Memorial Health Program in Savannah and Chetan Patel from the Columbus Family Medicine Residency Program, two of our resident Board members, were our delegate and alternate respectively, and Joey Krakowiak and Tim Hutton, two of our student Board members, served as our student delegate and alternate.

Our resident delegates reported that the total conference attendance was 4,565-a record high composed of 1,210 Residents and 1,349 Students, and that out of 66 resolutions submitted, another record high, 46 were adopted.

Student and Resident National Meeting

SPECIAL NEWS: Chetan Patel, MD was elected as 1 of the 2 National Resident Alternate Delegates to the AAFP Congress of Delegates for 2016-2017!  Congratulations to Dr. Patel, who is pictured here with AAFP Board member Dr. Jack Chou from California and Dr. Gerry Tolbert, NCCL Convener. The main stage sessions during the conference were inspirational and challenging. They enjoyed hearing from the panel of doctors who discussed various issues that impact family medicine, including how increasing the number of primary care doctors and utilizing them well would help solve our nationwide healthcare spending problem. They were challenged by Dr. Jeffrey Brenner about innovative ways to think about our healthcare system. He shared convincing data about the benefits of healthcare hotspotting through his work with the Camden Coalition.

Our student delegates, Joey Krakowiak and Tim Hutton, reported that they appreciated the opportunity to represent the Georgia Academy at the National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students Congress of Delegates last week.  It was their first time attending and were thrilled to meet so many like-minded people who are excited and passionate about Family Medicine and striving to provide the best care for their patients.

S&R National Conf

And they even got a chance to meet and talk with Dr. Wanda Filer, the president of the AAFP, as pictured here.

GAFP launches #StopAFIBinGA Social Media Campaign

 

Contact:

Morgan Mahone

Marketing and Communications Manager

mmahone@gafp.org

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 23, 2016

 

GEORGIA ACADEMY OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS LAUNCHES #StopAFIBinGA CAMPAIGN

Social media campaign emphasizing risk factors for cardiac atrial fibrillation and stroke

June 23, 2016—-

The Georgia Academy of Family Physicians in conjunction with Pfizer is bringing awareness to thousands of Georgians who are unaware of their cardiac atrial fibrillation and stroke risk.

@GAFamilyDocs, the academy’s Twitter handle, will be tweeting on the 5th, 15th, and 25th of every month for the next year. Tweets will remind clinicians and patients that the risk factors for atrial fibrillation and stroke are manageable. Atrial fibrillation, known as AF or AFIB, is an irregular and often very fast heart rate. This may cause symptoms like heart palpitations, fatigue, and shortness of breath. Treating atrial fibrillation is important because it may cause a stroke and negatively impact the patient’s quality of life. An estimated 2.7 million Americans are living with AFIB.

“Unhealthy eating, smoking, drinking, and lack of exercise are risk factors you can control”, said Mitzi Rubin M.D. “Simple lifestyle changes can make a world of difference when treating AFIB and drastically reduces the chance of stroke.” Dr. Rubin is the president of the GAFP and a family physician in the Atlanta area. The tweets will cover a range of topics intended to start a conversation between patients and providers about their heart health.

The Georgia Academy of Family Physicians represents 2,900 physicians and medical students. It is the only medical society devoted solely to relationship focused on integrated care. primary care.

Family physicians conduct approximately one in five office visits—that’s 192 million visits annually or 48 percent more than the next most visited medical specialty. Today, family physicians provide more care for America’s underserved and rural populations than any other medical specialty. Family medicine’s cornerstone is an ongoing, personal patient-physician