Foundation Reports

Foundation President's Report

Elizabeth A. Burns, MD, MA

Thank you! As I complete my 2-year term as president of the STFM Foundation, I would like to acknowledge the donations, in money and in time, that have made this year a success. Our programs have never been stronger and our donors more generous. The Foundation Trustees have evaluated many program applications and conducted a 5-year review of the Bishop Fellowship Program. With the help of the Foundation staff, we have kept STFM members informed through regular columns in the STFM Messenger. It’s been a busy time since the last annual meeting.

To further develop the relationship between the Foundation Board of Trustees, the STFM members, and the STFM Board of Directors, the Trustees voted on bylaws changes to increase the number of Trustees and developed a new Trustee position to ensure communication between the STFM Board and the Foundation. In addition, we formalized our officer structure, now requiring that officers also serve as Trustees, and shortened the term length for the Trustee. These changes are the end result of several years of conversation between the Trustees and the STFM Board members. The Foundation’s purpose is to support the STFM Board and the STFM members, and this will help the Foundation stay true to that goal.

Last summer, with the help of DMD Consultants, we conducted a far-reaching evaluation of the Bishop Fellowship Program. This culminated in a full-day retreat, where the Trustees met, reviewed the results, and planned for the future. In addition, we selected three new fellows for the 2007–2008 class: Mark Penn, MD, MBA (Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine), Charles Henley, DO, MPH (University of Oklahoma-Tulsa), and Josh Freeman, MD (University of Kansas). The Foundation was delighted that three fellows could be selected and confident that the fellowship program will continue to make a significant contribution, both in the lives of the fellows and through their leadership contributions.

The Foundation’s Faculty Enhancement Program offers support for family medicine faculty to improve their skills and experience through mini-fellowships at other institutions. Since 1996, we have supported 41 scholars. The range of their projects is amazing, and the benefit to their programs incalculable. Chosen for the 2006–2007 program were Melissa Bradner, MD, MHA (Virginia Commonwealth University), Carol Husledde (University of Kentucky), Amy Locke, MD (University of Michigan), and Jenny Walker, MD, MSW, MPH (Mount Sinai School of Medicine).

The New Faculty Scholars Program offers financial support to faculty members in their first 2 years “on the job.” The scholars attend the annual meeting and the pre-meeting faculty development session. What a great way to kick off an academic career! We were delighted to have more than 30 applications this year. In response to membership interest in increasing financial support to attend the annual meeting, the Trustees selected seven scholars, bringing the total number of New Faculty Scholars to 84. This year’s scholars are Richard Allen, MD, MPH (St. Mark’s Family Medicine Residency, Salt Lake City, Utah), Lia Pierson Bruner, MD (Texas Tech University), Troy Fiesinger, MD (Conroe Family Medicine Residency, Conroe, Tex), Nathan Hitzeman, MD, (Sutter Health, Sacramento, Calif), Lisa Maxwell, MD (Christiana Care, Wilmington, Del), Cheryl Seymour, MD (Maine-Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency, Augusta, Me), and Lisa Ward, MD, MScPH (University of California-San Francisco). We anticipate great energy, ideas, and ongoing academic contributions from this group.

Our International Scholar this year is Cheong Liang Teng, MD, who is an associate professor of family medicine at International Medical University in Seremban, Malaysia. Dr Teng is chair of the Malaysia Primary Care Research Group and chief editor of The Family Physician. He is the 13th International Fellow sponsored by the Foundation. Previous scholars are from Paraguay (two), Ecuador, Argentina, Poland, South Africa (two), Taiwan, Chile, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, China, and Moldova.

Support for the New Faculty Scholars, Faculty Enhancement Awards, and International Scholars has amounted to more than $250,000 since the programs started. The dollars to support these programs come from STFM Foundation donors and the benefits to the individuals and the discipline demonstrate the value of those donations.

This year, we will honor two long-serving leaders of family medicine with the F. Marian Bishop Award. Edward Ciracy, MD, the founding chair of the University of Minnesota Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, is recognized (posthumously) for his development skills and dogged determination in developing a vibrant academic department at a major research university. Robert Taylor, MD, is recognized for his many contributions to the discipline, including editing classical clinical texts in family medicine and serving as a mentor to countless family physicians through the years.

The Leland Blanchard Memorial Lecture will be given by Kevin Grumbach, MD, chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco. He will guide us in a look at the STFM vision statement and our role in the change process in his talk “A Community Leading Change—Fulfilling the STFM Vision.” We hope that his words will inspire all STFM members, new and returning, to realize the strength and the spirit of family medicine and our role as teachers of the discipline.

I started with a THANK YOU, and I’ll end with one as well. This Foundation works because of the volunteer efforts of the Trustees. I would like to thank them all and especially thank Joe Scherger, MD, MPH, for serving as the fund-raising chair this year. Our executive director, Roger Sherwood, CAE, deserves special thanks for keeping us all organized and on task. The STFM staff, as always, is helpful and supportive. I would also like to thank our donors, for giving us the opportunity to have the leadership programs that serve the specialty so well. Collectively, we invest in the future.