News

LACMA's Historic Week 

This Thursday evening, LACMA will celebrate the installation of its first African American and African American female president, Dr. C. Freeman.

A Geriatric Psychiatrist affiliated with California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA, Dr. Freeman is now the Program Director for the newly accredited Psychiatry Residency Training Program at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. She received her medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine, dual training in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and has been in practice for more than 20 years.

Dr. Freeman will also be LACMA's fifth female president in its 147 yearhistory.

"As the first African American LACMA President, I am both proud of the organization's evolution to effect such a pivotal change in its traditional leadership and honored to lead our group in what is shaping up to be a year of new levels of inclusion and active advocacy, which increases the value for more physicians and has the highly desirable side effect of stimulating growth in membership, involvement, affiliations, and impact."

On behalf of the LACMA staff, I am so proud to welcome Dr. Freeman into her new role and am looking forward to a historic year under her visionary leadership.

---

On Thursday, LACMA will also welcome several other physician leaders into their new roles: Dr. Sion Roy will become LACMA's president-elect, Dr. Diana Shiba will become LACMA's treasurer and Dr. Jeffery Lee will become LACMA's secretary.



Each physician leader brings a new element of diversity and perspective to the organization and can speak to the unique needs of physicians of all practice settings, as well as the unique needs of our patient populations and local communities.

I am excited for this next chapter in LACMA's history as we continue to change and adapt to the ever-changing healthcare environment and find ways to support physicians, patients, and medical community leaders.

---

Special Thanks

William K. Averill, MD Cardiology Torrance, CA

As we welcome our new president and officers, I would also like to recognize Dr. Bill Averill, whose term as president this past year will come to an end. Under his leadership, LACMA launched the Saving Private Practice Campaign and hosted two pivotal consortiums to support independent physicians, organized LA County physicians to help defeat AB 3087, successfully transitioned to new headquarters, and launched a new platform to engage with medical groups, hospitals, and health systems. Dr. Averill's attentiveness to his role as president and dedication to organized medicine, his peers and patients will have a lasting impact on the future of the organization.

I would like to personally thank Dr. Averill for his trusted guidance, commitment, and efforts to advance the mission of LACMA to offer relief and real solutions to the issues physicians face every day.

Meeting Updates-Join Me! 

After this week's installation, LACMA has a full calendar of meetings and engagements. I'm scheduling conversations with key elected officials in the month of July to form relationships and better understand priorities relative to healthcare and impacts on physicians, patients andcommunities.

Initial Targets Include:

Wendy Carillo, 51st District (LA) Richard Bloom, 50th District (Santa Monica) Jesse Gabriel, 45th District (Van Nuys) Cristina Garcia, 58th District (Downey) Sydney Kamlager Dove, 54th District (LA) Al Muratsuchi, 66th District (Torrance) Patrick O'Donnel, 70th District (San Pedro) Blanca Rubio, 48th District (West Covina) Miguel Santiago, 53rd District (LA)

I encourage physicians in any of these Districts to join me. Please contact meif you would like to attend these important meetings. I will keep members and district leaders updated as additional meetings are scheduled. Please let me knowif there is someone specific you would like to meet with so I can include them on my target list.

I am also meeting with physician leaders and executives at several major medical groups and medical centers to discuss how LACMA can support their operations and physicians, now that we have several partners that can help in areas such as clinical communications, marketing, patient engagement, physician executive training and placement, revenue management and cost reduction, and so much more. Some of our current group partners are taking advantage of these offerings and are seeing tremendous progress.

The currently scheduled priority meetings are with Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Los Angeles, Little Company of Mary in Torrance and USC.

I am especially excited to work with USC once again as they officially welcome Dr. Laura Mosqueda as the first female Dean to lead the Keck School of Medicine. We are thrilled to support her in her new role and review membership opportunities.

As we engage with more hospitals and groups, I encourage all members to champion LACMA among their own affiliations, make introductions and offer to attend meetings. It is crucial to have members participate and advocate for LACMA's growth.

---

Last but not least for this week, it is that time of year when LACMA has the opportunity to welcome and recruit incoming interns and residents at the major residency programs throughout LA County, including at USC, Charles Drew University, UCLA, Kaiser Permanente, White Memorial Medical Center, and Cedars-Sinai. We kicked off today at UCLA, with 30 new intern members. Later this week, we look forward to signing up more new members at Cedars-Sinai, USC and Kaiser Permanente at their incoming intern and resident orientations.