Student Chair Eager to Lead Peers at National Conference

“I remember being so impressed by the chair,” Zamora said of Weiler, who was the 2022 student chair when Zamora attended the conference between her second and third years in med school. “I didn’t actually realize she was a student until they did introductions. I was impressed by the level of knowledge she had about the processes and how she was able to facilitate everything that was going on. It was pretty cool to watch.” 

Zamora was introduced as the student chair for the 2024 National Conference at the conclusion of the 2023 conference after being elected by her peers during that event.

“It was kind of surreal to be up there, knowing that a year earlier I had looked up at the student chair and been in awe of the role and the leadership it would take,” said Zamora, a fourth-year student at Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine. “I thought, ‘Oh, wow. It’s my turn.’”

It indeed will be Zamora’s turn Aug. 1-3 when National Conference returns to Kansas City, Mo. She already has spent the past year helping plan the event, which offers workshops, mainstage speakers and an expo hall with hundreds of family medicine residency programs, and the student and resident congresses.

“Ever since my first time at National Conference, I have loved the atmosphere and the excitement,” said Zamora, who previously served as a regional coordinator for the AAFP’s Family Medicine Interest Group Network. “I wanted to have a bigger role in that, so student chair seemed like the next role that I could fill.”

More than 4,400 people attended National Conference in 2022 when Zamora made the trip as the student member of the Virginia AFP’s Board of Directors.

“I remember walking in the first time, and there were so many people,” she said. “I had only been to state conferences. The Virginia chapter is decent size, so there are a lot of people at its meetings. I expected National Conference to be a little bit bigger, but nowhere near that level. My husband was with me and he said, ‘Wow. I had no idea this many people loved family medicine.’ I said, ‘Me either.’ That was my first interaction with all of these people who were all there to learn, to be encouraged and to advocate for different things at the congresses. It was pretty inspiring.”

Zamora credited Claire Lockman, D.O., a first-year family medicine resident in Hendersonville, N.C., who graduated from Liberty last year, with getting her involved in student leadership.

“One of the things she told me was that as we get these leadership opportunities, we need to be really intentional about finding that next person and pull them up behind us because you want to make sure that the work continues,” Zamora said. “So, my goal at National Conference is to really encourage students to participate. The AAFP wants to hear what students have to say, whether that is via leadership roles or via writing resolutions in the congress. We can get involved and be part of the change that is happening in family medicine, and I’m really hoping to encourage students to feel comfortable in that space.”

That’s true, she said, for both allopathic and osteopathic students.

“I go to D.O. school,” she said, “and I think a lot of D.O. students don’t realize they can participate in the AAFP. The AAFP is really working to break down that barrier. There are workshops at National Conference that are leaning more into osteopathic manipulation. One of the things that I tried really hard to do as an FMIG regional coordinator, and now in this position, is to really encourage D.O students to get involved because their voice also matters. A lot of D.O. schools are opening, and we’re becoming a large part of the family medicine workforce.”

National Conference played a huge role in helping Zamora and her husband, fellow Liberty student Carlo Zamora, navigate the National Resident Matching Program.

The couple successfully matched together at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Va., in family medicine and emergency medicine, respectively.

“I initially met them at National Conference and then was able to connect with them more because they also partner with our school,” she said of Riverside’s family medicine program. “We made a list of all the places that we were looking at going, so that way I could be more strategic about reaching out to people at the conference. National Conference has so many programs from all over the U.S., so we were able to cast a pretty wide net and make connections that we wouldn’t have been able to make otherwise.”

Zamora hopes to practice full-scope family medicine after residency, a plan she’s had in mind for years. As a sophomore at the University of North Carolina she spent time shadowing Matthew Higgins, M.D., in Henderson, N.C. 

“He showed me all of what family medicine can be,” she said. “He did outpatient and inpatient. He delivered babies, saw patients in nursing homes and everything in between. We woke up in the morning early and went to round on patients at the hospital. We came to clinic, and he had four generations of a family altogether. He delivered a baby at lunchtime and came back to clinic. Then we went to the nursing home in the evening. Every minute was different. It was engaging, and it was interesting. I realized how much he was a part of all of these people’s lives and a part of this community.”