This is a transcript of ACPM President Dr. Ryung Suh’s comments during the ACPM annual meeting on May 8, 2025.
This is not an easy time to lead in public health or preventive medicine.
We are living through a time of great political upheaval and global disruption. The rise of populist and anti-science rhetoric in some countries, the emergence of infectious threats once thought nearly eradicated, increasing political polarization, social media fueled misinformation and the growing erosion of public trust — these are not just geopolitical headlines. They are forces that are shaping the health and well-being of entire populations and point to critical challenges that are impacting our profession. This is compounded by the rising tide of chronic diseases and their economic burdens, the underinvestment in public health infrastructure and the training pipeline, and the ever-present threat of high consequence infections. These, too, have geopolitical implications. The enduring truth is that public health is inherently political, and ACPM must remain engaged in the political and global dialogue. Some might say that this is a crucible moment in our history, born out of crisis, with an opportunity to rebuild our future for the better. But, it is also a period rife with risk and one that must be navigated with experience and expertise, prudence and wisdom, boldness and courage.
Closer to home, we are also experiencing a pivotal chapter in the life of the American College of Preventive Medicine. As with many mission-driven organizations in the current era, ACPM is facing financial headwinds, evolving member expectations, and operational challenges. Over the past year alone, we transitioned our Chief Executive Officer, lost half our total annual revenues, and have been compelled to embark on major cost optimization strategies. We are actively exploring strategic pivots to our operating model, although we recognize that our opportunities are not without their integral risks and implementation barriers. We have philosophical differences within our leadership as well, with our College members represented by a very diverse group of individuals from clinical or public health practice and advocacy organizations, health executives and public servants, business professionals and industry veterans, and others who do not always agree on the path ahead. These are not easy issues that we are grappling with, and we should not minimize them. But neither should we fear them. These are the growing pains of transformation, the necessary discomfort that comes with redefining what value we provide, how we lead, and how we build a more sustainable future.
Even closer to home, I am facing very personal milestones as well. Last year, my beloved mother was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, and she is currently at home surrounded by four generations of love and warmth in her final months. My father, a Vietnam War era veteran and a strong and gregarious man, has not left her side for the past 6 months. Last year also brought the birth of my first grand-daughter, and I am surprised by the emotions and joy and sense of wonder that she brings forth in me. My wife and I celebrated 30 years of marriage together, and I remain sheepish about my failure to remain retired (I had retired back in 2021 and had promised to spend the rest of our days, fat and happy, devoting my time to her and our family). But, along the way, I committed to the ACPM Presidency, continued to teach at Georgetown University (although I finally retired after 22 years on the faculty earlier in January), and started a period of federal government service. This latter part was supposed to sunset back in January, in time for my ACPM term as President. But, my responsibilities as the Chief of Staff for the Veterans Health Administration have gained even greater importance as we navigate bold and transformative changes at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and my public service continues (for now). Hence, I find myself reflective on how best to balance my personal, public service, and professional responsibilities in a manner that does justice to all.
In these important moments, we must all ask ourselves: Who do we want to be? How do we show up for our members, our communities, our families, and each other? What is our enduring purpose at this point in time? And, what actions and decisions are required to achieve a better future – for our families, for our profession, for our College, for our society? I have wrestled with these issues over the past year as I prepared to take on my new ACPM responsibilities, and I continue to wrestle with them still. Leadership, I’ve come to believe, is not about having all the answers. It’s about holding space for complexity. It’s about listening more than speaking. It’s about accepting our challenges and difficulties with composure and grace. It’s about taking our responsibilities seriously and with a sense of purpose. And it’s about honoring the humanity in each of us.
And, so it is with a profound sense of honor and humility that I stand before you today — not just as your colleague and a proud member of the College for over three decades, but as your new President with a profound mandate and responsibility to face our ongoing challenges and to help Secure the Future of Preventive Medicine and Public Health. As Jennifer Chevinsky has shared, that is also the theme for our next annual meeting in Baltimore. But, for today, let me begin with a few thoughts on our priorities for the coming year.
PRESIDENT’S PRIORITIES: The terrain beneath our feet is continuing to shift on all fronts, but our mission remains steadfast. Preventive medicine and public health are the cornerstones of our health care system, of healthy communities, of economic stability and national security, and of social well-being. The moment we face today demands bold, systems-level thinking. It demands leaders who can move beyond the walls of hospitals and into the boardrooms, schools, communities, and policy chambers. It demands experienced experts who understand health care, public health, and the society we live in. It demands physician leaders like us. As we look onward and upward to the journey ahead, I offer three calls to action — focused on the College, on our leadership mandates, and on the value we provide for our members:
First, we must start by healing the College. There are fundamental problems and existential threats to the College that must be addressed now: We have allowed our financial foundations to shift onto perilously shaky grounds. As a professional society, our first commitment must be on delivering member value and on achieving the goals and objectives of our members. But, we cannot deliver the value that our members deserve nor achieve the College’s broader strategic objectives without sufficient and sustainable revenue flows to support them.
ACPM’s financial model had been largely unchanged for decades, relying in equal parts on membership dues, conference registration fees, grants and contracts, and a broader bucket of product sales, development efforts, and other funding sources. Just before the pandemic, however, we began to shift toward greater reliance on grant and contract funding to support the operations of the College, reaching 61% of ACPM revenues and 81% of staff wages as of this time last year.
The risks of this shift toward over-reliance on grants and contracts were further compounded by (1) a steady annual decline in the size of the portfolio since 2022, (2) the lack of adequate expertise and investment in the infrastructure required to be successful in maintaining such a portfolio, and (3) a flawed structuring of our portfolio from a business perspective, with most of the revenues supporting pass-through activities with limited financial value to the College. Leaders on the ACPM Board of Regents and on the ACPM Strategy Committee recognized the growing risk of these concerning trends, explored our options for a strategic reset, and started to prepare contingency plans to strengthen the financial health of the College. This was especially opportune because the grants and contracts portfolio that remained was eliminated earlier this year by the Administration’s efforts to curb the federal bureaucracy.
To respond to these financial events and potential threats, we have several ongoing efforts already underway, which may impact our members and how ACPM operates:
Second, we must lead with vision. It’s worth remembering that preventive medicine has always had to fight for its place in the broader medical landscape. We are the stewards of long-term thinking in a system driven by short-term incentives. We are the voice for structural change in a culture that often prefers quick fixes. We are agile and capable of covering a broad waterfront of disparate disciplines in a health care profession that ushers us toward greater and greater specialization. That’s not a flaw in our field — it’s our superpower. And in a world increasingly recognizing the importance of prevention and resilience, our time – and our ability to impact our future paths – is now. But, prevention cannot be an afterthought, and ACPM cannot be an ineffectual voice in the great national debates of our time. We must elevate our collective voice, expand our influence, and ensure that preventive medicine is sufficiently valued. We must raise our national visibility. We must advance policy and practice grounded in equity and evidence. And, we must build sustainable partnerships that extend our reach and relevance. Preventive medicine must not sit at the margins of health policy or wait for invitations to the table. We must set the table. We must make prevention the backbone of our health system — not a side note, not a silo, but the center. This will require:
Our President-Elect, Jim Tacci, will take the lead on these fronts and will serve as the public-facing voice of ACPM advocating for policy action (for as long as I remain in federal service). My role as Chief of Staff of the Veterans Health Administration precludes me from a more active, public-facing role in this regard, but I know that Jim will be an excellent ambassador for us.
Third, we must invest in our members. We must nurture the next generation of preventive medicine leaders within the College. That means mentorship, pipeline development, and building career pathways that reflect our values.
Thank you for letting me share a few thoughts as I begin my tenure, although I realize that I’ve spoken of our challenges more than of our hopes and aspirations. I suppose that the optimism I have is around how we plan to face our challenges. The challenges before us are significant, but they are not insurmountable. We will drive the changes necessary to build a healthier future, for the College and for our communities. We will embrace our roles as leaders, advocates, and mentors, and work together to achieve the strategic goals and priorities of ACPM. And, we will continue to keep our members at the center of all that we do.
If I may share a personal story: When I was in high school, I was a soccer player. My parents were immigrant shopkeepers who had never had an opportunity to see me play, although I had been playing since grade school. One day, my father came to watch me play, and I was so excited to show him what I was capable of. I was a really good player back then, captain of our team, and one of the fastest sprinters in the league. Normally, I was a sweeper-stopper (or center fullback) in charge of the defensive game but, for this particular game, I was everywhere! I ran up with the offense to take shots on goal, I did bicycle kicks to save balls headed out of bounds, and I basically chased the ball the entire 90 minutes of the game. When the game concluded, I was so proud of myself for giving my best and hardest effort. My father and I walked back to our car, and he was silent for the entire walk. And, when we got to our car, he turned to me and said, “Son, you run really fast…. but at all the wrong times!” The lesson for me, as a young man, was that it wasn’t important that I run hard all the time but rather that I make the most strategic investments with the resources and energies that I do have. I find my father’s lesson to be valuable and applicable again: ACPM must determine when and where to run fast and when we should sit back and see how the game unfolds.
As we conclude our conference, I am looking forward to the future, knowing that the knowledge, inspiration, and commitment of our members will carry us through the choppy waters ahead. And, as a final note, let me thank Mirza Rahman (our newest Past President), Melissa Ferrari (our Interim Chief Executive Officer), and the entire ACPM staff for their stalwart efforts and exceptional leadership during these often trying times. Thank you.
Ryung Suh, MD, MPP, MBA, MPH, FACPM
President
Even closer to home, I am facing very personal milestones as well. Last year, my beloved mother was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, and she is currently at home surrounded by four generations of love and warmth in her final months. My father, a Vietnam War era veteran and a strong and gregarious man, has not left her side for the past 6 months. Last year also brought the birth of my first grand-daughter, and I am surprised by the emotions and joy and sense of wonder that she brings forth in me. My wife and I celebrated 30 years of marriage together, and I remain sheepish about my failure to remain retired (I had retired back in 2021 and had promised to spend the rest of our days, fat and happy, devoting my time to her and our family). But, along the way, I committed to the ACPM Presidency, continued to teach at Georgetown University (although I finally retired after 22 years on the faculty earlier in January), and started a period of federal government service. This latter part was supposed to sunset back in January, in time for my ACPM term as President. But, my responsibilities as the Chief of Staff for the Veterans Health Administration have gained even greater importance as we navigate bold and transformative changes at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and my public service continues (for now). Hence, I find myself reflective on how best to balance my personal, public service, and professional responsibilities in a manner that does justice to all.
In these important moments, we must all ask ourselves: Who do we want to be? How do we show up for our members, our communities, our families, and each other? What is our enduring purpose at this point in time? And, what actions and decisions are required to achieve a better future – for our families, for our profession, for our College, for our society? I have wrestled with these issues over the past year as I prepared to take on my new ACPM responsibilities, and I continue to wrestle with them still. Leadership, I’ve come to believe, is not about having all the answers. It’s about holding space for complexity. It’s about listening more than speaking. It’s about accepting our challenges and difficulties with composure and grace. It’s about taking our responsibilities seriously and with a sense of purpose. And it’s about honoring the humanity in each of us.
And, so it is with a profound sense of honor and humility that I stand before you today — not just as your colleague and a proud member of the College for over three decades, but as your new President with a profound mandate and responsibility to face our ongoing challenges and to help Secure the Future of Preventive Medicine and Public Health. As Jennifer Chevinsky has shared, that is also the theme for our next annual meeting in Baltimore. But, for today, let me begin with a few thoughts on our priorities for the coming year.
PRESIDENT’S PRIORITIES: The terrain beneath our feet is continuing to shift on all fronts, but our mission remains steadfast. Preventive medicine and public health are the cornerstones of our health care system, of healthy communities, of economic stability and national security, and of social well-being. The moment we face today demands bold, systems-level thinking. It demands leaders who can move beyond the walls of hospitals and into the boardrooms, schools, communities, and policy chambers. It demands experienced experts who understand health care, public health, and the society we live in. It demands physician leaders like us. As we look onward and upward to the journey ahead, I offer three calls to action — focused on the College, on our leadership mandates, and on the value we provide for our members:
First, we must start by healing the College. There are fundamental problems and existential threats to the College that must be addressed now: We have allowed our financial foundations to shift onto perilously shaky grounds. As a professional society, our first commitment must be on delivering member value and on achieving the goals and objectives of our members. But, we cannot deliver the value that our members deserve nor achieve the College’s broader strategic objectives without sufficient and sustainable revenue flows to support them.
ACPM’s financial model had been largely unchanged for decades, relying in equal parts on membership dues, conference registration fees, grants and contracts, and a broader bucket of product sales, development efforts, and other funding sources. Just before the pandemic, however, we began to shift toward greater reliance on grant and contract funding to support the operations of the College, reaching 61% of ACPM revenues and 81% of staff wages as of this time last year.
The risks of this shift toward over-reliance on grants and contracts were further compounded by (1) a steady annual decline in the size of the portfolio since 2022, (2) the lack of adequate expertise and investment in the infrastructure required to be successful in maintaining such a portfolio, and (3) a flawed structuring of our portfolio from a business perspective, with most of the revenues supporting pass-through activities with limited financial value to the College. Leaders on the ACPM Board of Regents and on the ACPM Strategy Committee recognized the growing risk of these concerning trends, explored our options for a strategic reset, and started to prepare contingency plans to strengthen the financial health of the College. This was especially opportune because the grants and contracts portfolio that remained was eliminated earlier this year by the Administration’s efforts to curb the federal bureaucracy.
To respond to these financial events and potential threats, we have several ongoing efforts already underway, which may impact our members and how ACPM operates:
- Cost Optimization: With the precipitous drop in revenues, we reduced our ACPM staff, lowered our vendor support costs, pursued reductions in our fixed costs with longer-term commitments, and closely scrutinized all cost drivers in ACPM operations. In the end, cost optimization is about investing in the long-term for the benefit of our members; it’s about surviving to fight another day. Hence, we are prioritizing those activities that bring member value and improve the member experience. All other cost drivers are being substantially reduced.
- Business Development: We had ACPM leaders develop strategic options for evolving our operating model to add stronger and more sustainable revenue streams for the College. The process of rebuilding financial health has already begun, although it may take several years to see the ultimate fruits of our labors. We must be decisive and timely in making strategic decisions, but we must remain steadfast and patient as we await progress and outcomes. Agility, decisiveness, commitment, and resilience are the prerequisites for success, and I remain confident that we will right this ship with time.
- Ideation and Insights: The ACPM Strategy Committee contributed important insights about our pending risks – which were not always well-received when first presented – and these helped raise awareness and spur onto action the potential future directions for the College to take. Uncomfortable conversations are necessary, and accepting hard truths is necessary. And, most of all, decisive actions are necessary. We have spent too much time talking about our broader aspirations or highlighting the good news and good news alone; we have had many of our challenges and risks obfuscated from view; and we have been excruciatingly slow in responding to external changes and in leveraging new opportunities. And, so, we encourage all ACPM members to openly discuss our challenges and risks as an organization and to put forth their best ideas for helping to secure the future for the College and for our profession. My commitment to you is that we will be open about our risks and challenges, that we will consider all recommendations for change, and that we will take decisive actions on the best paths ahead.
Second, we must lead with vision. It’s worth remembering that preventive medicine has always had to fight for its place in the broader medical landscape. We are the stewards of long-term thinking in a system driven by short-term incentives. We are the voice for structural change in a culture that often prefers quick fixes. We are agile and capable of covering a broad waterfront of disparate disciplines in a health care profession that ushers us toward greater and greater specialization. That’s not a flaw in our field — it’s our superpower. And in a world increasingly recognizing the importance of prevention and resilience, our time – and our ability to impact our future paths – is now. But, prevention cannot be an afterthought, and ACPM cannot be an ineffectual voice in the great national debates of our time. We must elevate our collective voice, expand our influence, and ensure that preventive medicine is sufficiently valued. We must raise our national visibility. We must advance policy and practice grounded in equity and evidence. And, we must build sustainable partnerships that extend our reach and relevance. Preventive medicine must not sit at the margins of health policy or wait for invitations to the table. We must set the table. We must make prevention the backbone of our health system — not a side note, not a silo, but the center. This will require:
- Advancing Public Health Systems: We must drive improvements in America's public health infrastructure, and we must be effective leaders in the national arena. A voice whom we all respect greatly – a former ACPM President and someone I have looked up to for decades – once told me that ACPM is predominantly a bunch of progressives and liberals, and we often get lost along ideological battle lines in our governance and in our collective actions. I would submit to you that we need to build a broader tent for ACPM, one that welcomes and respects leaders from across the ideological spectrum who are willing to enter battle for the big and important issues of our day. We are more effective when we are more inclusive, and we are more effective when we focus on the big rocks. We cannot hunt the gazelles when we are fighting amongst ourselves over chipmunks.
- Visible Leadership: We are still recovering from the greatest public health crisis in a century — while preparing for the next one. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed a number of fractures: underfunded public health systems, lack of data integration, a workforce stretched too thin, and communities too often left behind. But, it also revealed our strengths: adaptability, scientific rigor, cross-sector collaboration, and the irreplaceable value of prevention. Public health was on the front lines. Unfortunately, we have short memories, and the spotlight has begun to dim. ACPM must work to become and to sustain a bold voice in preventive medicine and public health again. When we lead with courage, clarity, and compassion, the arc of history bends toward the public’s health.
- Broad Collaborations: Prevention doesn't reside in any one discipline. It thrives at the intersections — between medicine and policy, between technology and community, between research and real life. We must build new partnerships: with business, with educators, with faith leaders, with technology innovators, and with policymakers. We must become better at speaking across sectors, engaging across differences, and aligning with those who may not wear the same professional label but who share the same fundamental missions and strategic objectives.
Our President-Elect, Jim Tacci, will take the lead on these fronts and will serve as the public-facing voice of ACPM advocating for policy action (for as long as I remain in federal service). My role as Chief of Staff of the Veterans Health Administration precludes me from a more active, public-facing role in this regard, but I know that Jim will be an excellent ambassador for us.
Third, we must invest in our members. We must nurture the next generation of preventive medicine leaders within the College. That means mentorship, pipeline development, and building career pathways that reflect our values.
- Membership Value: There are over 5,000 preventive medicine physicians in this country who are not members of ACPM, and the path to re-engaging them must be through improving our membership value. We also have an alarmingly low net promoter score among residents and younger physicians, and our ACPM Membership Committee has been hard at work to address our shortfalls in this area. We must actively support the best initiatives and programs that engage and enliven the experience of our members, and it will remain a priority focus area for us all.
- Governance: We need fresh perspectives and new energies to drive change, and we need to provide our talented younger leaders with opportunities to grow. We have proposed improvements to the governance model, to include changes to our slate elections process, and we may explore tighter term limits for our Board of Regents. We need new voices joining us every year to help us drive transformational change while maintaining appropriate institutional memory. Generational diversity will only strengthen the governance capabilities of our College at this critical moment in time.
- Affinity Sections: My growing engagement in and commitment to ACPM when I first joined back in the 1990s and the engagement of many of our emerging leaders now came through our involvement in affinity groups. The Medical Student Section, the Resident Physician Section, and the Young (or Early Career) Physician Section provided formative experiences for many of us, and we will continue to invest in supporting a broad swath of affinity groups within the College. And, for those long-standing members of the College, please share your knowledge and experiences and foster a culture of mentorship! Our strength lies in our members, and our membership is strengthened when our best mentors nurture the next generation!
- Residency Funding: Ensuring adequate funding for preventive medicine residency (PMR) programs is vital to developing the next generation of preventive medicine leaders. The inclusion of Public Health and General Preventive Medicine (along with Occupational and Environmental Medicine) in the National Residency Match Program (NRMP) was an important step and the first time our specialty was included in the NRMP. And, of course, we are all closely tracking the situation at HRSA with respect to impoundment of grant funding. But, we have a working group with an innovative campaign to improve PMR funding strategies, and we look forward to sharing more as we make progress on this front. It has the potential to be a game-changer in how we fund preventive medicine residencies, and it is the kind of bold action that is necessary in times when we are challenged.
Thank you for letting me share a few thoughts as I begin my tenure, although I realize that I’ve spoken of our challenges more than of our hopes and aspirations. I suppose that the optimism I have is around how we plan to face our challenges. The challenges before us are significant, but they are not insurmountable. We will drive the changes necessary to build a healthier future, for the College and for our communities. We will embrace our roles as leaders, advocates, and mentors, and work together to achieve the strategic goals and priorities of ACPM. And, we will continue to keep our members at the center of all that we do.
If I may share a personal story: When I was in high school, I was a soccer player. My parents were immigrant shopkeepers who had never had an opportunity to see me play, although I had been playing since grade school. One day, my father came to watch me play, and I was so excited to show him what I was capable of. I was a really good player back then, captain of our team, and one of the fastest sprinters in the league. Normally, I was a sweeper-stopper (or center fullback) in charge of the defensive game but, for this particular game, I was everywhere! I ran up with the offense to take shots on goal, I did bicycle kicks to save balls headed out of bounds, and I basically chased the ball the entire 90 minutes of the game. When the game concluded, I was so proud of myself for giving my best and hardest effort. My father and I walked back to our car, and he was silent for the entire walk. And, when we got to our car, he turned to me and said, “Son, you run really fast…. but at all the wrong times!” The lesson for me, as a young man, was that it wasn’t important that I run hard all the time but rather that I make the most strategic investments with the resources and energies that I do have. I find my father’s lesson to be valuable and applicable again: ACPM must determine when and where to run fast and when we should sit back and see how the game unfolds.
As we conclude our conference, I am looking forward to the future, knowing that the knowledge, inspiration, and commitment of our members will carry us through the choppy waters ahead. And, as a final note, let me thank Mirza Rahman (our newest Past President), Melissa Ferrari (our Interim Chief Executive Officer), and the entire ACPM staff for their stalwart efforts and exceptional leadership during these often trying times. Thank you.
Ryung Suh, MD, MPP, MBA, MPH, FACPM
President