Applications Open for AAFP Board of Directors Nominations
Q&A: ‘Family Medicine Has Deep Bench’ for Leadership
Jan. 6, 2025, David Mitchell — In 2023, the Congress of Delegates created a new process to build an annual slate of candidates for the AAFP Board of Directors through a new Nominating Committee, replacing the longstanding tradition of candidates being nominated by their chapters.
The COD used that process to elect new directors nominated through that process for the first time at its annual meeting in September in Phoenix, and today the 2025 election cycle kicks off as the Nominating Committee begins accepting applications.
AAFP News recently talked with Nominating Committee Chair and past President Reid Blackwelder, M.D., FAAFP, associate dean for graduate medical and continuing education at East Tennessee State University’s Quillen College of Medicine, about what worked well during the committee’s first year and what changes are in store for 2025.
What did you learn from the first election cycle with this new process?
One exciting thing we learned is that family medicine has a deep bench. There are a lot of people with phenomenal skills who we didn’t know about. I expect news will get out more broadly that this opportunity exists, and we’ll discover even more incredible family docs.
The process worked well. Given the time constraints with the first nomination cycle, the committee really did not have time to go and knock on doors and recruit, so the process worked organically. We said, “Here’s an opportunity,” and people reached out and dove into the process. The process of reviewing and vetting the candidates allowed us to meet one of our main charges as a committee, which was to bring forward a slate of candidates with a diverse set of experiences and unique voices for Congress to consider. We brought that group forward, and I’m proud of what the committee accomplished.
Another important thing we learned is that in our process of talking with, interviewing and vetting nominees for at-large director candidate, we were impressed by the breadth and depth of diversity in our membership. Diversity is more than just outwardly assessed characteristics, although those are important variables as well. The committee recognized that nominees from different personal as well as professional circumstances, different upbringings and life experiences, and different life stages create a beautiful palette of diversity from which to paint the composition of our Board.
One of the big issues that Congress was trying to change was moving candidates away from chapter sponsorship to … maybe call it member sponsorship. Of the six candidates the committee nominated, there were three who were clearly already in the usual chapter leadership pipeline moving toward a Board run. There were another three candidates who had followed different paths, with less direct involvement in the chapter, yet with leadership in other venues for the AAFP, the chapter or even regionally. So, the election results were a validation of the new process. Congress essentially said, “You brought us a voice we might not have heard before, and we think that voice needs to be on our Board.”
People are watching to see if this process is going to produce the same old results, recycled in a clever package, or will we be able to say, “No, this is different.”
Is anything about the process going to change in 2025?
This is a new process, so it has to change and evolve. We’re learning as we go, so we will be doing some things differently.
For example, every member of the nominating committee was invited to attend candidate interviews, if they could, last year. Most people were able to be there, and we had a standard group of folks who committed to do every interview. This year, we’re going to record the interviews, and the expectation will be that all members of the nominating committee will review every interview either in person or with the recordings.
In the first election cycle, we did not specifically address the roles of the speaker and vice speaker because we knew that the incumbents were both running for reelection unopposed. We have recognized, but have not yet fleshed out, that there is a specific skill set and a different set of qualifications required for those positions. You can’t learn these jobs on the fly. You need to come in at the vice speaker level to learn the ropes, and you need to have parliamentary experience. So, we are looking at specific qualifications for the vice speaker. We’re also considering instituting a requirement that the speaker make an announcement by a certain date of his or her intention to vacate the position because we have to give potential candidates time.
I think the biggest difference this year will be how the committee looks at the baseline criteria. Though leadership in medicine can come in lots of forms and through lots of venues, we need to pay attention to candidates’ involvement in the Academy because if you’re going to be on the AAFP Board of Directors, you should understand how the AAFP works.
What kind of feedback did you get from the candidates, chapters, the Congress of Delegates or the Nominating Committee?
Feedback has been quite positive. I heard at Congress from many people who were excited about the slate of candidates and were pleased with the results of the committee. I also heard from the candidates themselves. Many of them were extremely positive and thankful for the opportunity. Everybody, whether they were elected or not, said they learned something and it was a good experience. Obviously, it’s tough running at this level of governance. You’re asking to take on a huge load. If you’re not successful, it’s disappointing. But that’s not about the process so much as, just inevitably, Congress will choose the three candidates they feel will best represent them.
The speaker and vice speaker put out a survey to the Congress for feedback on the nominating process, so there’s some more formal feedback that the committee will be reviewing.
The committee was pleasantly surprised that the process worked so well; taking on an endeavor of this depth and breadth with so much riding on it was quite an undertaking. I want to thank those members of our Academy who agreed to serve on the first iteration of the nominating committee because they took on a very heady responsibility and did so with great spirit and energy.
What advice would you offer to members who are considering running in this cycle?
If this is something you want to do, explore it. That doesn’t mean you necessarily apply and go through the process now. But as part of your leadership development, if you’re thinking, “Could I do this?” then reach out, find your mentors, find your advisory group and have some conversations. Are you in a good position for this? If not, be proactive about doing what you need to do to get to a position where you can say, “Yes, it’s time to move forward.” Not everybody who thinks about running should put their names in the hat yet, but it’s worth pausing in our crazy world to say, “What do I want to do? What are my aspirations and am I making progress toward them?”
I feel strongly that anyone who is going to put forth their name as a nominee should understand the Academy. Even for those of us who’ve been involved for many years, there’s nothing wrong with a refresher. Do you know who’s on the Board, and what does that mean? What is the role of the Congress of Delegates? What is the AAFP Commission structure? How do chapters represent members? What are issues within the chapters? Those are really important things to understand because what you are asking to do is represent family physicians, residents and students from all over the country at the highest level. How are you going to best represent those people, and how are you going to make sure that you have been listening to those voices? That’s so important because it is easy to get siloed. Even those people who have outstanding CVs may not have the ear of the actual constituents they represent. That’s a challenge for the Academy if there’s a disconnect between the family physicians in the trenches and the people in leadership. I am hopeful that by changing this process we will create an opportunity for our membership to feel better represented either by one of them stepping forward or by creating new channels of communication. Those who want to be in leadership need to get creative about how we can better represent a broader group of our constituents.
What else do you want potential candidates to know?
It is important to understand the intensity of the obligation so that people can make an informed decision. These roles will require time away from your job, so how are you going to cover that? What impact could that have on your career trajectory? It’s common for someone who serves as AAFP president, after their six years of service, to no longer be in the practice they were in when their leadership term began. This is a significant sacrifice of time and a sacrifice, potentially, of time away from family.
We’re family physicians, and we’re all about relationships and stories. I would encourage anybody considering this level of involvement to reach out to people you know, people you have a relationship with and hear some stories from people who have served as leaders. Reach out nationally and talk to someone on the Board or someone who has served on the Board. That will go a long way toward informing you about what you’re asking to take on.
What’s the path forward for candidates who don’t win or people who want to get involved but aren’t nominated for national roles?
A really important part of this is that someone who is nominated but not moved forward needs to be connected with their chapter, if they aren’t already involved at that level, to see what opportunities exist. Here is someone who said, “I’d like to be involved,” and the nominating committee might say, “We appreciate that, but not yet at this level.” We don’t want that person to disappear.
Members of the AAFP Nominating Committee
Chair: Reid Blackwelder, M.D., FAAFP,
of the Tennessee AFP
Kevin Bernstein, M.D., M.S., FAAFP,
of the Uniformed Services AFP
Emily Briggs, M.D., M.P.H., FAAFP,
of the Texas AFP
Mary Campagnolo, M.D., M.B.A., FAAFP,
of the New Jersey AFP
Jack Chou, M.D., FAAFP,
of the California AFP
Amy Matheny, M.D., M.P.H., FAAFP,
of the Montana AFP
Jiana Menendez, M.D., M.P.H., FAAFP,
of the Maine AFP
Keith Ratcliff, M.D., FAAFP,
of the Missouri AFP
David Schmitz, M.D., FAAFP,
of the North Dakota AFP
Tasha Starks, M.D., M.P.H.,
of the Arkansas AFP
Kelly Thibert, D.O., M.P.H.,
of the Nevada AFP
Juan Carlos Venis, M.D., M.P.H., FAAFP,
of the Indiana AFP
Kevin Wang, M.D., FAAFP,
of the Washington AFP
Also serving are Steven Furr, M.D., FAAFP, chair of the Board of Directors; Ada Stewart, M.D., FAAFP, chair of the AAFP Commission on Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness in Family Medicine; and Aerial Petty, D.O., resident member of the Board of Directors.
The second part is if you have run and were not elected, what does that mean for you? What are your opportunities? How can chapters connect with these newly identified leaders and tap into the leadership skills they offer. One goal of the Nominating Committee is to identify members with leadership skills and interest, and find great ways for our chapters and our Academy to grow with them.
Congress asked for this change for a number of reasons. One is that many chapter executives wanted out of this process, and I think it was a wise choice for them to give it up. Having said that, it’s not easy to give up something that has been a major focus of chapters for a long time, so I want to applaud the chapters, and Congress for supporting the chapters’ move in this direction. We’re still learning what that means, and that cultural shift is ongoing. This change of becoming even more member supportive in terms of leadership will need ongoing discussion about how chapters evolve to identify, nurture and utilize chapter leaders differently. How to make this shift in chapter processes is not yet clear, but the new nominating process has created the need for the reflections and conversations.