As I write my final President’s Newsletter, I am overcome with a deep sense of gratitude to the members and staff of the American College of Preventive Medicine for affording me the opportunity to have served as your President for these past two years. Recognizing that it is also May 1st or “May Day”, a global holiday marking the struggles and accomplishments of the working class, and knowing that we have had more than 100,000 federal employees losing their jobs, including many of our colleagues at the CDC, FDA, NIH and the VA, it is a challenging time indeed for many across the country.
Despite this, many of us will soon be in Seattle, looking to "Move the Needle" at our annual conference. Preventive Medicine 2025 is designed to bring together leaders across healthcare and public health to collaborate, learn and work to change our health care system through prevention and well-being for all.
- The resurrection of the Medical Student Section, Resident Physician Section, and Early Career Physician Section
- A change in CEOs – with Ms. Melissa Ferrari stepping in to serve as the Interim-CEO since last June.
- Challenging financials, with a loss of grants and reductions in staff
- Vaccine hesitancy and vaccine resistance due to misinformation and disinformation
- Seeing the USA leave the WHO and noting the cuts to the US Public Health workforce, with about a 25% staff reduction at HHS
At times leadership can be a thankless role, but it is a vital one where I have been proud to take up the burden in a long line of leaders who have preceded me at ACPM. I have sought to carry on in the best interests of the College in an objective, dispassionate manner, focused only on the greater good and finding common cause with any partner, including HHS Secretary Kennedy, as he seeks to end the chronic disease epidemic, using evidence-based science and medicine, while eliminating conflicts at regulatory agencies.
The United States spends over 70% of our healthcare budget on treating chronic disease. Six out of ten Americans have at least one chronic condition, and four out of ten have more than one chronic condition. So we need a change, but the promise of Making America Healthy Again has been seemingly hindered by some of the actions at both HHS and the VA. Yet, we as Preventive Medicine physicians have to continue our work, focused on promoting good public health policy and prevention, for a healthier America.
In this regard, and as the incoming administration has a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate its stated desire to do things differently, Drs. Jill Waalen, Clarence Lam, Hunter Jackson Smith, and Miriam Alexander represented ACPM in a meeting with the HRSA Administrator, Mr. Tom Engels. They discussed how appropriate funding for Preventive Medicine Residency training will help to keep patients out of the hospital, keep the public healthier longer, and support the armed services through training civilian Preventive Medicine physicians. Overall, it was a positive and informative meeting. The ACPM delegation made a strong impression on the HRSA Administrator and as this role may be subsumed under the Administration for a Healthier America department, we look forward to ongoing engagement about residency funding with the administration.
Last year at Prevention Medicine 2024 in Washington, DC, I talked about Service, Accountability and Optimism! Perhaps the word for this year is “Grit”, as we will need to have both passion and perseverance to successfully manage the many challenges that we currently face, given the hard jobs we have chosen to do.
I want to express my gratitude to all of you, the ACPM membership, the members of the Board, and the Staff, for your tremendous support these past two years that I have had the high honor and privilege and pleasure of serving as the President of the American College of Preventive Medicine. I consider myself a fortunate man to have been able to work with such stellar and smart and selfless individuals as you all, in service to ACPM and its members and the work we do as Preventive Medicine physicians, to help improve the lives of all Americans. Thank you!
Mirza I. Rahman, MD, MPH, FAAFP, FACPM
President