Elections - ASP

After recently transitioning away from a University program and into a Community program, I quickly learned how community programs can have differing needs, values, and require different types of support.  Through this journey, the APDIM community has been transformative for me. I hope to receive your vote for Councilor so I can give back by being a voice for community programs.

I believe my strengths will help me in this position. I find joy and purpose in understanding the context of a situation, working to create a strategic vision, motivating others, and rolling up my own sleeves to ensure that vision is achieved. I do this daily in my own program and will take these strengths to the Council to better support my APDIM community.    

I have been fortunate to train and work in institutions that represent the spectrum of academic medicine – from small to large university systems, to building collaboration with institutions abroad, and now to directing a medium-sized community program situated in the diverse Prince George’s County, Maryland. Prince George’s County is the second wealthiest majority-minority county in the country yet has profound inequity in distribution of wealth and alarming social vulnerability.  Our county boasts 25-30% of its population being born outside the U.S., and as a majority International Medical Graduate program we strive to ensure our patients are seen by doctors who may share their background.  Our primary mission is to train excellent internists to provide holistic care to our historically underserved patients and retain doctors to improve local access to care.  Through this current work and through each step of my career, I have gained experience that enables me to understand the unique challenges of the diversity of our membership as we care for our diverse learners and patients.    

I have attended APDIM conferences for several years now and vividly remember wanting to attend every session at my first meeting and realizing how much I had to learn. Now years later I look forward to attending meetings twice yearly and seeing familiar faces in our community who are passionate educators and are learning from each other.  It is so encouraging to see willingness to share ideas and best practices as we all work toward the common goal of training excellent internists. It has been an honor to be involved in APDIM at the committee level via the Medical Education Research Committee and now I look forward to growing my commitment to the organization, and to you as a member.