Mental health. Community-based prevention and treatment. Physician wellness. It’s not difficult for Lee Savio Beers, M.D., FAAP, to determine which priorities she plans to emphasize as AAP president in 2021. She hopes to address all of them.
They are “connected in so many ways,” she said.
“I have worked on a lot of different issues, but they are all interrelated in how social circumstances in our environment impact children and their families,” she said. Her mission is to make those systems better, which can have an important impact on improving physician wellness and alleviating burnout.
“If we improve systems for our patients, we are also improving the systems for ourselves as caregivers,” she said.
Dr. Beers, of Washington, D.C., was voted AAP president-elect in the 2019 AAP election. She ran against Pamela K. Shaw, M.D., FAAP, of Kansas City, Kan.
Dr. Beers won’t soon forget getting the call on Sept. 23 informing her that she had won.
“I didn’t have patients scheduled in the morning, nor did my husband, who is also a pediatrician (Nathaniel Savio Beers, M.D., M.P.A., FAAP). “So he and I took the morning to work from home. I was home with my husband when we got the call,” she said.
Dr. Beers will take over as president on Jan. 1, 2021, following Sara "Sally" H. Goza, M.D., FAAP, of Fayetteville, Ga., who will serve as president in 2020.
To read about Dr. Beers’ background, visit http://bit.ly/DrBeers.
Voters also chose three members to serve in the new AAP Board of Directors at-large positions:
- Constance S. Houck, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, of Boston;
- Charles G. Macias, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, of Houston; and
- Joseph L. Wright, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, of Upper Marlboro, Md.
Results for additional AAP national offices, which take effect Jan. 1, 2020, are below.
District I Chairperson
Wendy S. Davis, M.D., FAAP (re-elected)
District II National Nominating Committee Representative
Carolyn T. Cleary, M.D., FAAP
District IV Chairperson
Michelle “Shelley” D. Fiscus, M.D., FAAP
District IV Vice Chairperson
Patricia “Pat” M. Purcell, M.D., M.B.A., FAAP
District V Vice Chairperson
Michael A. Gittelman, M.D., FAAP
District V National Nominating Committee Representative
Tisa Johnson-Hooper, M.D., FAAP
District VII Chairperson
Gary W. Floyd, M.D., FAAP
District VII Vice Chairperson
Susan Buttross, M.D., FAAP
District IX National Nominating Committee Representative
Edward S. Curry, M.D., FAAP
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