Standing in a near-empty auditorium in the Texas Medical Association headquarters, Houston emergency physician Diana L. Fite, MD, on Saturday took the oath of office to become the 155th president of America’s largest state medical society.
TMA installed Dr. Fite as president before a live and online gathering of the organization’s Board of Trustees and outgoing president David C. Fleeger, MD. The TMA House of Delegates elected Dr. Fite last year to serve as president-elect for one year before assuming the presidency today.
The new president said “the world and our own medical world have changed abruptly and drastically” since she was elected in May 2019. “I may not always have a say in what happens to me, but I always have a choice about how I respond to it.”
The installation of TMA’s president normally occurs in a ballroom full of 500 physician and medical student delegates from across Texas during TexMed, the association’s annual conference. However, TMA canceled TexMed 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the TMA Board declared itself a Disaster Board in March, allowing it to perform certain functions normally performed and approved by the house.
The board also elected uncontested candidates for other TMA leadership positions Saturday:
- Rio Grande Valley internist E. Linda Villarreal, MD, as president-elect;
- Houston emergency physician Arlo F. Weltge, MD, as speaker of the House of Delegates;
- Waco otolaryngologist Bradford W. Holland, MD, as House vice speaker; and
- Austin ophthalmologist Michelle A. Berger, MD, as TMA secretary/treasurer.
All contested elections have been postponed until the board determines the health crisis has concluded and the House of Delegates is able to function.
“Doctors’ practices are in horrible financial shape… many employees now are without jobs… hospital-based physicians are having salaries cut and losing hours of work… while many of us place ourselves and our families in harm’s way,” Dr. Fite said during her speech.
Before the worst pandemic in a century took precedence, Dr. Fite identified priorities for her and TMA to tackle during her yearlong term leading the organization. She still intends to address them once the current crisis passes.
Bureaucratic interference in medicine tops her list. She also feels urgency to convince lawmakers to improve physicians’ payments for caring for Medicaid patients, saying the current situation has reached “a very dangerous point.”
As an emergency physician who works in several Harris County emergency departments, she is deeply troubled by time spent logging data into a computer.
“Electronic medical records (EMRs) have turned us into data processing clerks,” Dr. Fite said. She believes the system should be improved, including making EMR systems “talk” to one another so they will allow physicians to easily see what diagnoses the patients have and what testing already has been done.
The board on Saturday also extended the board service of former TMA President Douglas W. Curran, MD. Dr. Curran was TMA’s president in 2018-2019, and just completed his one-year term as immediate past-president. His term on the board was extended temporarily to replace the vacancy created by the election of Dr. Villarreal as president-elect. He will serve in this role until the House of Delegates is able to hold contested elections for Board of Trustees positions.
The board also elected Gary W. Floyd, MD, of Keller as board chair, and Richard W. Snyder II, MD, of Dallas as vice chair.