Posted on 02.16.10 by Executive Vice President Susan Hogeland, CAE 

I'm happy to report the second Family Medicine Patient Centered Medical Home Summit was a smashing success with nearly 100 attendees and excellent reviews.  It's exciting to us when the excitement among residents - and even program directors - is palpable.  Rich Roberts, a former AAFP President, was keynote speaker for the event held at The California Endowment's wonderful headquarters in Los Angeles.  Rich is always inspirational.  Other leading lights of family medicine helping us with the two-day program included President Tom Bent, Board member Jimmy Hara, past president Joe Scherger, and Family Physician of the Year Alan Glaseroff, among others.  CAFP thanks all of those who presented and participated, as well as our co-sponsors and financial contributors Southern California Permanente Medical Group and Northern California Permanente Medical Group's Community Fund.  We also thank Pfizer, which gave an unrestricted grant in support.  Finally, a special shout out to staffers Sandy Newman, Shelly Rodrigues, Dasha Sakharova and Jane Cho who worked especially hard to make the program a big success.

CAFP has provided suggestions to AAFP on its extensive comments on proposed regulations for implementation of meaningful use regulations.  We were in general agreement with AAFP's analysis of the regulations, but suggested some altered language with regard to disparities issues on which we have considerable experience because of our work on The Medical Leadership Council.

Carla Kakutani, CAFP past president and president of FP-PAC, the California chapter's PAC, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of FamMedPAC, the American Academy of Family Physicians' political action committee.   To assist Dr. Kakutani in her efforts to engage more members in political action, Jack Chou, MD, CAFP's President-elect, has been appointed to the California Chapter Champion position for FamMedPAC by Jim King, its chair.  Congratulations to both!  Last week Dr. Kakutani and CAFP staff met with Dr. Don Kurth, Republican candidate for Assembly District 63 (a race to replace Assemblyman Bill Emmerson who is running for state Senate). Dr. Kurth is the current Mayor of Rancho Cucamonga and president-elect of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.  

We're putting the finishing touches on what promises to be an excellent 2010 CAFP Congress of Delegates in Sacramento March 6-8.  With both Paul Grundy, MD of Director of Health Care Transformation for IBM and Lori Heim, MD, AAFP President on the schedule, we think it will be an enlightening weekend for attendees.  It is always unfortunate to me that we have a relatively low turnout for such good programming and training - only about half of county chapter slots are filled.  At the request of Delegates and Alternates, we've expanded the Town Hall portion of the Congress to nearly three hours, and consolidated the "official stuff" to do so.  We give a "Hero of Family Medicine" award to an FP who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in service to the specialty and we offer outstanding media and legislative training sessions on Sunday afternoon.  The event concludes Monday morning with a legislative briefing and visits to the Capitol to meet with legislators from delegates' and alternates' districts. 

Staffers Sophia Henry and Dasha Sakharova joined CAFP President Tom Bent and past president Joe Scherger at a very well-attended Sacramento/Yolo joint chapter meeting arranged by Warren Brandle and Carla Kakutani with help from Sophia and Jessica Cho.  Almost 70 members were in attendance.  Way to go, Drs. Brandle and Kakutani!