Delegates Elect Nosal and Other New Leaders

As president-elect, Nosal will serve on the Board’s executive committee, chair the Board’s Subcommittee on Strategic Planning and Development and work as a member of the Board’s Screening Subcommittee. 

She will routinely participate in the “cluster meeting” of AAFP commissions and may chair one of the Academy’s task forces or other Board-appointed work groups. She may be called on to represent the Academy in communicating with individual members and external groups, including lawmakers.

New President

Jen Brull, M.D., FAAFP, of Fort Collins, Colo., who was voted president-elect last year during COD in Chicago, was installed as Academy president. She practiced in rural Kansas for two decades and is now vice president of clinical engagement for Aledade, a company that partners with independent primary care physicians to succeed in value-based care.

Brull has served the Academy as convener of the AAFP Working Group on Rural Health and as a commission chair, delegate and director.

New Board Chair

Steven Furr, M.D., FAAFP, a rural practice owner from Jackson, Ala., completed his term as president and assumed the role of AAFP Board chair.

Furr, a rural practice owner from Jackson, Ala., will preside over all meetings of the Board and its executive committee. The Board chair is a non-voting member of all standing commissions and committees. He will confer with the Academy’s executive staff weekly and provide direction and guidance related to implementing Board actions and on day-to-day issues that arise between meetings of the Board and the executive committee. He also will review official statements, such as congressional testimony, and may represent the Academy before legislative bodies and in meetings with government officials.

Other Election Results

Also elected or chosen by acclamation for leadership positions at the 2024 Congress of Delegates, with a brief description of duties, were:

• Speaker of the Congress — Russell Kohl, M.D., FAAFP, of Stilwell, Kan., was re-elected to a one-year term as speaker. The speaker is a member of the Board and its executive committee, and presides over the Congress of Delegates.
  Kohl is chief medical officer of TMF Health Quality Institute, a Medicare quality improvement organization that serves four states and two U.S. territories. He also is a colonel and chief flight surgeon in the Missouri Air National Guard, where he serves as the state air surgeon.
  Kohl chairs the Board’s award subcommittee and may also serve as a chair or member of one of the Academy’s task forces or other Board-appointed work groups. He also will appoint all reference and special committees of the COD, is empowered to grant the privilege of the floor of the COD and votes only in the case of a tie that doesn’t involve candidates for election.
• Vice speaker — Daron Gersch, M.D., FAAFP, of Avon, Minn., was re-elected to a one-year term as vice speaker.
  Gersch, an emergency room physician, is ER medical and trauma director for CentraCare - Long Prairie, Melrose, and Sauk Centre hospitals, and also is medical director for two nursing homes. As vice speaker, he is a member of the Board and presides over meetings of the COD in the absence of the speaker or when designated by the speaker. The vice speaker serves as chair of the Resolution and Policy Review Subcommittee of the Board and assists the speaker in planning and conducting the COD.
  If the office of speaker is vacated, the vice speaker fills the unexpired term. As vice speaker, Gersch may serve as a member of one of the Academy’s task forces or other special work groups appointed by the Board.
• Directors — Shannon Dowler, M.D., C.P.E., FAAFP, of Marshall, N.C.; Elisabeth Fowlie Mock, M.D., M.P.H., FAAFP, of Bangor, Maine; and Kathleen Mueller, M.D., FAAFP, of Windsor, Conn.

The Board includes nine directors elected in groups of three, or as otherwise needed, on a rotating basis. Directors sit as members of various Board subcommittees. One director is elected each year to serve as the at-large member of the Board’s executive committee. Between meetings of the COD, the Board oversees and administers the work of the Academy and development of its policies, appointing commissions, committees and other work groups necessary to assist it in fulfilling these responsibilities.

Dowler is an STI consultant in the Office of the Assistant Secretary U.S. Health.

Fowlie Mock is a clinical and policy consultant for the Maine Prescription Monitoring Program in the state’s Office of Behavioral Health.

Mueller is the system director for integrative medicine and cancer survivorship for Nuvance, a seven-hospital health system in Connecticut and southeastern New York.

• New physician Board member — Cynthia Chen-Joea, D.O., M.P.H., C.P.H., FAAFP, of Lakewood, Calif., serves as clinical adjunct faculty for the Emanate Health Family Medicine Residency Program and the University of Southern California. She was elected by her peers earlier this year during the National Conference of Constituency Leaders and confirmed by acclamation during the COD.
• Resident Board member — Aerial Petty, D.O., of New York, N.Y., is a fellow at the Family Medicine Center for Professionalism and Value in Health, and completed her residency in at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center.
• Student Board member — Mikala Cessac, of Columbia, Mo., is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Missouri–Columbia School of Medicine.

Petty and Cessac were elected by their peers this summer by the National Congress of Family Medicine Residents and the National Congress of Student Members, and confirmed by acclamation during the COD.

The new physician, resident and student members are all voting members of the Board who serve one-year terms. Each serves as liaison to one of the Academy’s standing commissions.

AAFP policies are determined by its members, and the Academy offers a multitude of elected and appointed leadership positions for students, residents and active members. Check out the opportunities and processes to get involved.