Colorado Governor's Newsletter March 2026
Gail E. Mizner, MD, FACP, ACP Governor
Governor's Corner
Dear Colleagues,
I've always thought of March as a winter month, but not this year, so Happy Spring! I hope you all are “weathering” the many upheavals in our profession and our world with as much resilience and optimism as possible. I am being joyfully distracted by two weddings-that of my youngest son in April and that of a dear friend who is a concert pianist in China in May. These two weddings will interfere with my attendance at National ACP and at Leadership Day, so thanks in advance to those of you who will be representing CO ACP at those events.
Here's your ACP news and updates in the usual order:
EDUCATION
Chapter Meeting:
Our chapter meeting on February 6-7 was a great success with 127 live attendees and 11 virtual, which is the highest attendance we've had since the pandemic! In addition to all the excellent talks, we had 4 resident oral presentations, 3 Forest for the Trees readings, a poster session, and an art table.
Our 2027 Chapter meeting will be February 5-6, 2027 at The Broadmoor. Please tell your colleagues and mark your calendars NOW!
National meeting:
It's not too late to register for the National ACP meeting in San Francisco April 16-18 with pre-meetings April 14-15. Register HERE
If you are going to be in San Francisco, please join us at our joint Colorado/New Mexico reception on April 17th at the Marriott Marquis San Francisco. RSVP HERE
Resident activities:
Congratulations to Dr Elinor Barsh from HCA HealthONE/Sky Ridge Medical Center who won this year's Governor's Choice Award for her presentation titled “Impact of Iron Deficiency Anemia Treatment on Heart Failure: Comparison of No Iron, Oral Iron, and Intravenous Iron”. Dr. Barsh was one of the 4 resident presenters at our chapter meeting and will also travel to San Francisco to attend the national meeting!
Congratulations to the winners of our recent Doctor's Dilemma competition: the Parkview team comprised of Mahnam Khizer, Shan Tandon, and Suhaib El-Khatib as well as their faculty sponsor, Dr Kourtney Lee. The team will now go on to compete at the National Competition in San Francisco in April! I also want to give a shout out to the CU Med-Peds program which participated for the first time this year and had an excellent second place showing. And special thanks to the judges Nick Breitnauer, Aaron Calderon, George Issa, Julie Knoeckel, and Daniel Lee and to Tyler Miller for again serving as an outstanding MC for the competition as well as helping review and edit questions.
This year's Residents Meeting will be held on May 5th at St Joseph's Hospital. All CO ACP members are welcome to attend.
None of the resident activities mentioned above would take place without the dedicated leadership and hard work of Dr Richard Miranda and his team. Thank you, Rick!
Late Breaking News! The CU Med-Peds Residency Program has made great use of the $25K ACP Obesity Stigma grant they won, and former resident, Dr Kathryn Hawrot, will be presenting their findings in a poster at the upcoming ACP conference in San Francisco. Congratulations to Dr Hawrot and to CU Med-Peds Residency Director, Dr Julie Venci and her terrific team!
ADVOCACY
State Advocacy Pilot Project:
Many thanks to our Advocacy Pilot Strategic Planning Committee: Dave Downs, Lou Capponi, Suzanne Brandenburg, Mark Earnest, Robin Richard, Christiana Shoushtari, Mark Matthews, myself, and Erik Mondrow who worked intensively this past year to help secure the vaccine supply in our state and earn Colorado ACP a reputation as a dedicated and reliable source of expertise and advocacy.
As you can see from the above photos, Colorado ACP held our very first state Advocacy Day on February 4th, 2026! We had 11 participants who met with 20 different legislators and/or their aides, discussing two vaccine related legislative efforts:
- We promoted SB26-32 which codifies the state's reliance on AAP, ACP, AAFP and ACOG for vaccine recommendations, expands liability protections to vaccine administrators, and, no small thanks to the input of the CO ACP, creates the Adult Immunization Act which authorizes the Colorado Board of Health to recommend adult vaccines in the same manner in which pediatric vaccines are recommended and authorizes HCPF (Medicaid) to purchase both childhood adult vaccines if needed. I knew we had gotten our message across when the wonderful lobbyist for the American Academy of Pediatrics who was working on this bill wrote: “Legitimizing adult vaccines helps protect children and vulnerable populations such as immunocompromised individuals. A recommended adult schedule elevates the scientific premise of community immunity. Community immunity is achieved by promoting adult vaccination as well as pediatric vaccination.” I'm thrilled to let you know that SB26-32 passed the final vote on March 18th and is ready for the Governor's signature!
- We educated legislators about the concept of State Universal Vaccine Purchasing (SUVP) and our hopes to introduce that legislation next year. (The time was not right for this year.) Meanwhile, if you have input about SUVP which I described in my last Gov letter or experience you want to share regarding the ease or difficulty of purchasing vaccines for your own practice, please contact me at gailmiz@msn.com.
Our work is not over for this legislative session. The Health and Public Policy Committee continues to meet every 2 weeks during the 2026 legislative session to discuss bills that are being considered at the Colorado State House and give recommendations to our partners, the Colorado Medical Society. If you are interested in being a part of those discussions, please contact Dr Dave Downs or (while Dave is out of the country from March 18 to April 10) me.
National Advocacy:
While we are fighting for vaccine access on the state level, National ACP is doing the same on the national level. I've written before about the lawsuit that ACP and other medical societies filed against HHS and RFK, Jr. for unilateral and unlawful changes in vaccine policy. Well, I'm excited to announce that because of that lawsuit, on March 16th a federal judge in Massachusetts issued a ruling blocking the government from implementing a series of decisions on vaccines made by RFK, Jr and reversing, at least for the time being, all decisions made by the Kennedy appointed ACIP!
To learn more about National level ACP advocacy and how you can get involved, visit ACP Advocacy | Health Policy Issues and Health Care Reform or Where We Stand.
Leadership Day in DC will take place this year on May 12-13. We have a couple of attending physicians, 6 students and a resident signed up to go but could certainly use a few more “mature” physicians to help lead the students. If you are interested, please register HERE The deadline for the hotel block (which fills quickly) is April 20th and registration deadline is April 24th.
COLLEGIALITY AND MENTORSHIP
The collegiality and sense of community I feel at our chapter meetings is a source of joy and inspiration for me. One of my favorite parts of the meeting is our awards ceremony in which we formally acknowledge and celebrate our colleagues for their wonderful contributions to the House of Medicine. Many thanks to the Awards Committee for their hard work in selecting this year's winners:
Awards
ACP Colorado Chapter Laureate Award
- Michael McDermott, MD, MACP
Robert B. Gibbons, MD, MACP Distinguished Medical Educator Award
- Juan N. Lessing, MD, FACP
Joel S. Levine, MD, MACP Distinguished Healthcare Advocate Award
- Sarah Stella, MD
Award for Excellence in Rural Health Care
- Brett Hesse, MD
Early Career Physician Awards
- Megan Hiles, MD, MBA, FACP
- Nicholas Breitnauer, MD, FACP
Community Service and Volunteerism Award
- No award winners this year. Do you know someone you could nominate for next year?
Megan Hiles, Juan Lessing, Brett Hesse, Sarah Stella, Nick Breitnauer
The 2027 Award Cycle will open in the next week! Keep an eye out for full descriptions of the awards and more information. The ACP Colorado Chapter will be accepting nominations for our prestigious 2027 Chapter Awards.
- ACP Colorado Chapter Laureate Award
- Volunteerism/Community Service Award
- Early Career Physician Award
- Joel S. Levine, MD, MACP Distinguished Healthcare Advocate
- Robert B. Gibbons, MD, MACP Distinguished Medical Educator
- Chapter Award for Excellence in Rural Health Care
These six awards will be presented at the 2027 ACP Colorado Chapter Annual Scientific Meeting, February 5-6, 2027, at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. The awardees may be nominated by any member of our Colorado Chapter.
Nominations for each award must include:
- The nominee's curriculum vitae (Maximum of 5 pages) Limit CV to the points that relate to the award.
- One Nomination Letter on letterhead. (Up to 1000 words)
See the nomination form for more information on the nomination letter.
The deadline for nominations is October 1, 2026. Please use this nomination form to nominate your colleague and upload all materials. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Colleen Keeku. Thank you for your contribution in recognizing excellent Colorado Chapter physicians.
Well-being
National ACP is introducing the Well-being Champion curriculum, a free, member-exclusive program designed to equip physicians with the skills and tools needed to advance well-being within their practices, institutions, and communities.
New Committee
Our Membership Committee chair, Dr Megan Hiles, had a wonderful idea which she is calling the Wise Committee-a committee for late career and retired ACP members who want to both address issues faced by their demographic and serve as mentors for trainees and early career physicians. (While wise beyond her years, Dr Hiles definitely does not qualify to join the Wise Committee; she is just full of good ideas.) We had a lot of interest in this concept at the chapter meeting and so, the Wise Committee is born! Our first meeting will be held virtually on April 29th from 7-8 pm. Please contact Colleen Keeku to get the zoom invite if you want to join us.
Chat with the Gov
This completely informal program continues to be available for any member who would like a one-on-one conversation about ACP, advocacy, career issues, or just to connect with a colleague. Simply email me at gailmiz@msn.com to schedule a time that works for both of us.
GOVERNANCE
CO ACP has a robust and diverse group of committees headed by talented chairs.
- Finance: Al Steinman
- Scientific Planning: Jen Stichman and Matt Moles
- Membership: Megan Hiles
- Well-Being: Julie Cohen
- CECP (Early Career Physicians): Juan Lessing and Nick Breitnauer
- Residents and Students: Rick Miranda
- Awards: Jen Ziouras
- HPPC (Health and Public Policy): Dave Downs
- Wise Committee: Deb Parsons and Allan Prochazka
Most of these committees would welcome new members. If you are interested in joining, please contact our Executive Director, Colleen Keeku, and she will put you in touch with the corresponding committee chair.
Thank you for reading this long missive and for all the hard work you do every day to help your patients and your colleagues.
With respect and gratitude,
Gail Mizner, MD, FACP, AAHIVMS
Governor, Colorado Chapter of the American College of Physicians