Matthew G. Garoufalis, DPM

President American Podiatric Medical Association 2013–2014

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May/June 2013  Vol 103  No 3  Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Acceptance Address APMA House of Delegates Washington, DC March 16, 2013 I stand here today, humbled by the work before us, but grateful for the trust you have laid upon my shoulders and thankful for the pioneering work of the many leaders who have come before me. Thank you, Dr. Speaker, President Caporusso, officers and members of the Board of Trustees, delegates, distinguished past presidents, students, APMA staff, invited guests, friends, and family. I’ll save the personal thanks for the end of this talk because I should be pretty emotional by that time. Last year, we celebrated 100 years advancing podiatric medicine. APMA’s first century began in my hometown, Chicago, with a small gathering of 225 chiropodists. Over the years, that fledgling organization grew and accomplished more than its founders ever could have imagined. Our members kept America marching through war. They treated our soldiers and fought their own battles for commissioned roles in the military medical corps. Our members gained physician access for podiatrists under Medicare. They have kept up our long fight for parity under Medicaid and with private payers. Our members created a robust curriculum at the colleges of podiatric medicine. They were unwavering in their efforts to establish parity with allopathic medicine. Today’s podiatrist is a physician, surgeon, and specialist. We enjoy the respect of colleagues, the trust of patients, and the attention of legislators thanks to our fellow members. It’s truly remarkable what we have accomplished together in just 100 years. APMA’s strength has always been and will always be in the unity of its membership. We still have much to accomplish if we wish to achieve our ultimate goals. Together, we are 12,000 strong. Together, our voices will be heard. Together, we will meet those goals. APMA’s second century depends on our actions. We are setting the course for our association’s—and

our profession’s—future. Our unique organization has been tested over a century. APMA’s structure and governance are sound, and the organizations under our umbrella lend us diversity that only enhances our unity. But as my fellow Chicagoan Eboo Patel once said, ‘‘We live in a world where the forces that seek to divide us are strong. To overcome them, we must do more than simply stand next to one another." In our second century, we must make new efforts to safeguard the unity of our profession and the strength that comes with it. We must address the concerns of younger physicians who, as a generation, tend to question the value of joining professional organizations. I personally have been involved in the politics of our profession since I finished my residency in the early 1980s. I have been a member of either the Illinois Podiatric Medical Association Board of Directors or the APMA Board of Trustees for my entire professional career. What I have learned through those experiences is that there should never be any question as to whether or not to become involved. The cost of membership dues is by far outweighed by the educational, political, and practical benefits we gain by being part of APMA. Consider how your own professional lives might be different without APMA’s advocacy efforts in Washington, DC; without the education and networking at the Annual Scientific Meeting; without the expert coding, reimbursement, and practice management information our association provides. APMA’s value goes beyond a financial return on investment. Being a member is quite simply the right thing to do. Our strength in unity helps our practices, our patients, and our profession every day. As an association, we’re advocating for patient access to the best care. We fund and publish research, like our Thomson Reuters study on the value of care by a podiatrist, a landmark paper that provides evidence to direct high-quality care. We make our voices heard on Capitol Hill and with

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other health-care providers. Look at our relationship with the American Osteopathic Association: APMA has learned from the osteopaths and their own progress toward parity. We are advancing at lightning speed with their support and encouragement. Special thanks to Dr. Ray Stowers who is here with us today. In order to maintain our strength in unity, we must convey the value of membership to our young physicians and to all non-members. APMA historically has included a huge percentage of practicing podiatrists among its membership. We must maintain and even grow that number to meet the demands of our second century. We also must continue to embrace diversity. Since its founding in 1912, APMA has welcomed professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds. Today, our practice of podiatric medicine varies from individual to individual and state to state. We have different clinical interests and different experiences. But we are all podiatrists. We are DPMs, and together in APMA, we are strong. Each of us as an individual brings something unique to the collective whole of our association. That’s why it is so vitally important that we recruit and retain as many members as possible. And it’s equally important that each of those members be involved in the larger goals of APMA and the profession. You, the members of our House of Delegates, play a crucial role in ensuring that every member is involved. The dialogue between APMA and our state and regional components and affiliates is so important. I encourage each component to invite APMA leaders to your meetings and provide us with time to talk to your members about where their national organization is headed and how they can play a role. I also ask that you pay close attention to the communications APMA shares with you on a regular basis. Everyone in this room should be reading APMA News each month and APMA Weekly Focus each week. If you’re using social media, follow APMA on Twitter and like the association on Facebook for daily posts that you can retweet or share. We also have begun sending a Monthly Focus e-blast to state leadership to underscore the issues that you should be communicating to your membership. I encourage you to contact me if there are other ways APMA can help you to enfranchise your members in our goals. Sir Winston Churchill said, ‘‘We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.’’ Thank you, all of you, for all that you give to APMA and podiatric medicine. You invest your time, your

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financial resources, and your energy in your profession every day. It’s an honor to serve such a committed group. We need more members like you. This year, I’d like to ask each of our members to give just 15 minutes a week to help us achieve the goals of Vision 2015. During those 15 minutes, they could log into our eAdvocacy system to send a message to a legislator or make a contribution. They could call a non-member and explain why they value their membership in APMA. They could take the time to mentor a young physician, a college student, or even a high school student, even if it just means sending a few words of advice or encouragement. If each of our members gave 15 minutes a week, we would be truly unstoppable. I ask you to take this message back to your states and ask all of your members to ‘‘give 15 for 2015.’’ Let’s show the world the strength of our unity. APMA and its membership will need this strength more than ever in our second century. We have become an integral player in the health-care arena, and while our numbers are small, our influence is keenly felt in Washington, as it should be in every state capitol. We have been courageous in ensuring our inclusion, participation, and leadership in the politics of health care. Our advocacy efforts are both highly regarded and respected on both sides of the aisle. As we move into our future, we will need our strength in unity to continue to advance our legislative priorities, including equity and access for podiatric physicians under Medicaid. We also have much to accomplish with the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. As an attending podiatrist at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago, I get to spend part of every week with the future of our profession, my residents and students. For our future and theirs, every podiatrist, in every practice setting, must enjoy the parity we all deserve based on our education, training, and experience. We will need our strength to ensure an adequate number of residencies for our graduates. Two years ago, this house resolved to help fund a residency facilitator position with the American Association of Colleges of Podiatric Medicine. Today, Dr. Edwin Wolf is hard at work to resolve our shortage, but no one person or organization can tackle this problem alone. We will need the strength of our individual members, united by our passion for the profession, for education, and for our students, to create the number of residency positions we need. We will need our strength to define our profession not by anatomy, but by competency. In too many places, competent podiatric physicians still cannot

May/June 2013  Vol 103  No 3  Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association

perform the treatments and procedures they are trained to perform because those procedures are outside their anatomical scope of practice. The Physician and Surgeon Task Force initiative in California will move us closer to that goal. With strength in our unity, we will crush that obstacle. As Michael Jordan tells us, ‘‘Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.’’ APMA’s strength and its willingness to tackle the obstacles to our profession are needed more than ever before. Embracing change is never easy, and today’s health-care profession is a place of turbulent change. Yet, this is also a time of great opportunity and unmatched promise. Let’s do more than stand next to one another. Let’s support each other, encourage each other, and strengthen each other’s resolve. Let’s cherish the unity of our proud profession and make sure it is as strong as ever as we embark on the next 100 years. And now to some personal thank yous . . . . Thank you to Dr. [Jerauld] Ferritto and Dr. [Ross] Taubman for helping with the Installation Ceremony. Dr. Ferritto was the first APMA president under whom I served, and as an example, set the bar very high. Dr. Taubman and I go back to before we

served on the board, and we have watched each other grow and change—for the better, I hope— over that time. Thank you to all the past presidents under whom I have served and to the future presidents currently serving on our board. They each have taught me, and continue to teach me, and I’m always willing to learn. Thank you to each and every one of the APMA directors and staff. These dedicated individuals bear an incredible responsibility for making APMA, and our profession, the great successes that they are today. We cannot do it without them; there is no doubt of that. Thank you, to you, the members of the House of Delegates, to the Illinois Delegation, and to the IPMA. I am here because of you and for all of you. Lastly, and most importantly, to the folks I can never thank enough, my wife Cathie, the center of my world, and our family. I close with one final reminder that we find our strength in unity! We enter APMA’s second century strong and united in our vision for our beloved profession. Thank you. MATTHEW G. GAROUFALIS, DPM President

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Acceptance address APMA House of Delegates Washington, DC.

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