TMA’s LGBTQ Health Section Elects New Leaders
By Sean Price

Maria_Monge

The LGBTQ Health Section kicked off its status as the Texas Medical Association’s newest section by electing a fresh slate of top officers. 

The section sprang from the passage of a 2018 TMA House of Delegates policy that rejects discrimination. That, in turn, helped spur the creation of the LGBTQ Health Section by the TMA House of Delegates in 2020, a decision made official by the house in 2021.  

Newly elected section Chair Maria Monge, MD, encouraged TMA physicians and medical students to join the section whether or not they identify as LGBTQ.  

“The more champions we have for LGBTQ health in this state, the better off we all are as physicians and Texans,” said Dr. Monge, adolescent division director in the department of pediatrics at The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. 

The section also will be led for the next year by: 

  • Chair-Elect M. Brett Cooper, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical School, and a member of the TMA Board of Trustees; 

  • Secretary Mai-Anh Tran Ngoc, DO, assistant professor of pediatrics at Dell Medical; and 

  • Medical student representative Christopher Wong, a fourth-year student at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. 

They join delegate Emily Briggs, MD, a New Braunfels family physician, and alternate delegate Kelly Bennett, MD, a Lubbock family physician, who are both in the middle of two-year terms.  

At the June 10 meeting, section members discussed ways to engage more TMA physicians and medical students, develop CME programming on LGBTQ issues, and prepare for education efforts at upcoming TMA statewide meetings.  

In addition, the section’s executive council will soon meet to discuss ways to address potential LGBTQ-related legislation in two special sessions of the Texas Legislature that Gov. Greg Abbott says he will call later this year. 

Find out more about joining. 


 

Last Updated On

January 24, 2024

Originally Published On

June 15, 2021