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In this Issue:
- A Message from the Governor
- News for the Fall ACP Board of Governors Meeting
- ACP National Advocacy
- 2019 Chapter Excellence Silver Award
- New ACP Fellows from the Southern California Region I Chapter
- ACP Southern California Educational Meeting October 2019
- ACP Southern California Region 1 Laureate Award Recipient
- See you in Spring 2020 at ACP Internal Medicine Meeting in Los Angeles
Mark S. Noah, MD, FACP, ACP Governor
A Message from the Governor
Dear Colleagues,
I hope you enjoyed the holiday season. Our local chapter has been busy in the last 6 months working to insure high quality educational programs and assuring the voices of our membership are heard at a statewide and national level. I enjoyed meeting with many of you at our Southern California regional ACP meeting this fall in Carlsbad, CA, and I want to thank all of you for the continue support of the College. In this newsletter, I want to share with you an update of ACP activities that have taken place since my last newsletter.
In the last 6 months, 236 new physician members have joined our ACP chapter, and we have also enrolled 218 new resident/fellow members, and 176 medical students. I am proud to announce that 25 of our ACP region's physician members have advanced to ACP Fellowship in that time period.
For the first time in the recent history of the ACP our region will be hosting the national ACP Internal Medicine Meeting at the Los Angeles Convention Center in April of 2020. Please show your pride in Los Angeles and the ACP and register to attend this highly informative meeting.
Please let me know if you find the information in this newsletter interesting or helpful to you. If there are specific issues you feel the ACP should be advocating for or educational efforts, we should be offering to you at a local level please email me at SoCalACP1@gmail.com
I wish you all a happy and healthy 2020.
Best regards,
Mark Noah, MD, FACP
Governor, ACP Southern California Region 1
News for the Fall ACP Board of Governors Meeting
The ACP Board of Governors had their Fall meeting in Tucson, Arizona last September. The meeting included a lively debate on the topic of the structure and financing of healthcare between an advocate of “Medicare for All” single payer system, and current Affordable Care Programs. Several of the resolutions that were passed by the BOG and sent for review to the Board of Regents are listed below.
Some of the Resolutions approved for Adoption/Implementation by the BOR after the Tucson meeting:
- The Board of Regents (BOR) to develops policy aimed at improving the safety of the electronic prescribing process including but not limited to appropriate auto-refill, preventing unauthorized request for new medications, and preventing dispensing of discontinued medications.
- The BOR will establish a collaborative work group for ACP to work with other specialty societies to improve the coordination between hospital and ambulatory care clinicians to improve patients' overall care.
- The BOR will advocate for all insurers to recognize that obesity is a chronic disease and to cover evidence-based treatments for obesity.
- The BOR will engage appropriate stakeholders to deescalate violence and teach conflict resolution.
- The BOR will review and update current ethical guidance for medical students' and physicians' relationships with companies for the purposes of marketing/endorsing product in the context of the current promotional environment including online and social media platforms and social media influencers.
- The BOR opposes the misuse of conscience clause to justify limiting access to care in a manner that discriminates against individuals or groups of individuals, and the BOR will review current ACP policy to determine if additional policy guidance should be provided on conscience clauses.
ACP National Advocacy
ACP continues its aggressive national advocacy for issues that are important to you and the care your patients receive. Some of the issues the ACP has fought for include: The ACP was able to influence CMS policy leading to increase physician reimbursement for office visits, reduced documentation burden, and payments for care coordination. The ACP continued its call to action to reduce firearm injuries and deaths and funding research funded by the CDC and NIH on firearms injury prevention. Continuing its campaign to reduce prescription drug prices, the ACP supported legislation to address this issue. The ACP also entered court briefs to block laws that limited women's access to reproductive care and limiting physicians from discussing certain treatment options.
Please look at all the ACP Advocacy efforts and please sign up to join our Advocate for Internal Medicine Network.
2019 Chapter Excellence Silver Award
I am pleased to announce that our chapter is in receipt of the 2019 Chapter Excellence Silver Award! The award recognizes chapters that meet specific standards to achieve excellence in chapter management. I thank the Governor's Advisory Council and those many chapter members who assisted in assuring our chapter meets all the criteria of excellence.
New ACP Fellows from the Southern California Region I Chapter
I am happy to announce the following ACP members that have been advanced to Fellowship in the last 6 months through November 2019:
MD
| Jason E. Bahk, MD, FACP | Jennifer Marks, MD, FACP |
| Rachel P. Brook, MD, FACP | Paul Noble, MD, FACP |
| James L. Caplan, MD, FACP | Phuong-Mai T. Pham, MD, FACP |
| Emmeline Chan, MD, FACP | Patrick H. Poquiz, MD, FACP |
| Paul E. Cohart, MD, FACP | Lili Shek, MD, FACP |
| Daniel K. Dea, MD, FACP | Aneesah Smith, MD, FACP |
| Garen Derhartunian, MD, FACP | James Tabibian, MD, PhD, FACP |
| Michael P. Directo, MD, FACP | Zaldy S. Tan, MD, FACP |
| Gary I. Gutkin, MD, FACP | Narbeh Tovmassian, MD, FACP |
| Linda A. Hillier, DO, FACP | John A. Uyanne, MBBS, FACP |
| Bindu M. Kamal, MD, FACP | D. L. Wadhwani, MD, FACP |
| Casey Y. Kaneshiro, MD, FACP |
Another 14 members will be approved for advancement to Fellowship in January of 2020 and I will list their names in my next Governor's newsletter.
ACP Southern California Educational Meeting October 2019
All three ACP Southern California Chapters held a very successful joint annual education/research meeting at the Westin Carlsbad Resort and Spa last October. There were over 400 register participants at the meeting that included sessions on the relationship between the Bowel Microbiome, Small Bowel Bacterial Overgrowth and Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Update in General Internal Medicine for 2019, Update in Hospital Medicine for 2019, Happiness and Living with Purpose, 100 years of Medical Technology in your Pocket, and Adult Immunizations. There were workshops including one on Shoulder Problem Management for the Internist, and there were two ABIM Maintenance of Certification sessions for hospitalist medicine, general internal medicine. There were over 400 educational posters presented by resident, medical students, and early career physicians, and the annual Doctor's Dilemma® (Medical Jeopardy) competition was a battle between 12 Southern California internal residency programs and was won by the team from UCLA.
ACP Southern California Region 1 Laureate Award Recipient
Anish Desai, MD, FACP, and Fredrick Russo, MD, FACP were the recipients of the 2019 ACP Southern California Region 1 Laureate Award given in honor of their dedicated service to our chapter. Both Drs. Desai and Russo have served on the Finance Committee of our chapter and have been instrumental in improving and solidifying the financial stability of our chapter.
See you in Spring 2020 at ACP Internal Medicine Meeting in Los Angeles
Yes, this spring the National ACP Internal Medicine Meeting will be in our own exceptional city of Los Angeles. The meeting dates are April 23-25, 2020, and it will be at the LA Convention Center right next to the Staple Center and LA Live. I hope to see many of you at the meeting and also hope you can all make it to our California, Hawaii, and Arizona Chapters Reception that takes place on Friday evening, April 24, at the JW Marriott Hotel at LA Live. We will send out more information on the reception later. Please put this date in your calendar and join us for this superb educational meeting.
