Tag Archives: American Medical Association

AMA Past-President Discusses Need for Leadership During Annual Lecture on Minority Health

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The immediate past-president of the American Medical Association, Patrice Harris, M.D., said leadership is vital to properly address the persistent gaps and inequities in health care that have been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harris delivered the UMKC School of Medicine’s Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Lecture in Minority Health on Feb. 12 in a virtual event. She served as president of the AMA in 2020 during the onslaught of the pandemic.

View the 2021 Dr. Reaner & Mr. Henry Shannon Lectureship in Minority Health

“I think we can all agree that we have a lot on our to-do list, going forward, post COVID, and it’s going to require leadership,” said Harris, the first African American woman to serve as AMA president.

Harris said that as the coronavirus evolved, one of the AMA’s primary roles under her guidance was to ensure that the organization provided the most up-to-date, evidence-based resources and information in the midst of a public health crisis.

“You want to make sure that you are leading and providing accurate information,” she said. “Clearly it was also our priority to make sure that physicians, practices and health care systems had the resources needed to navigate through the disruption. It certainly has been a tremendous disruption and still is. We wanted to make sure that we were fighting for physicians and practices and health care institutions so that we could better serve our patients.”

Harris shared what she said was a 25-year journey to becoming the 174th president of the AMA. She recalled that it wasn’t until after she had completed her undergraduate years of college at West Virginia that she met her first African American female physician.

After earning her medical degree in 1992 and becoming a psychiatrist, Harris served in leadership roles with several psychiatric organizations including the American Psychiatric Association.

Today, Harris is a psychiatrist and recognized expert in children’s mental health and childhood trauma. She serves as an adjunct assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Morehouse School of Medicine and the Emory Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. In private practice, she consults public and private organizations on health service delivery and emerging trends in practice and health policy.

Along her journey to leading the AMA, Harris learned some lifelong lessons such as the importance of working together. The advocacy victories achieved in Washington, D.C., and at state levels don’t typically come through working in silos and without partnerships, Harris said.

Another vital learning moment in leadership came in realizing the need to embrace differing opinions.

“It is sometimes difficult if you are in the room and you’re the only one that has a disconfirming opinion,” she said. “But leadership requires us to make sure we voice appropriately, respectfully, strategically, disconfirming opinions.”

That, Harris added, includes having what can be tough discussions about issues including social and institutional inequities.

“We have to have the sometimes very difficult conversations about racism,” she said. “It is up to institutions, universities, the AMA, businesses, Fortune 100 companies, Fortune 500 companies to make sure they are having these conversations and make sure that the folks around the decision-making tables about to have these conversations are in contact with their stakeholders.”

The annual Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Lectureship in Minority Health creates an awareness about health disparities and provides medical professionals, students, residents and the local community information about timely issues that affect underserved and minority communities.

Hasnie focusing attention on global, public health

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Usman Hasnie was appointed to the AMA Medical Student Section Committee on Global and Public Health at the 2017 AMA annual conference in Chicago.

Usman Hasnie knows well the importance of clean and adequate water supplies. As a high school student, he saw it first-hand while serving in Pakistan as a volunteer with SOS Children’s Village, an organization that provides care and resources to abandoned, destitute and orphaned children.

Hasnie is also from Flint, Michigan, and watched as a water crisis has thrown that community into a state of chaos for the past three years.

The images of both have prompted Hasnie to seek ways to make a difference. His latest effort will be as a member of the American Medical Association Medical Student Section Committee on Global and Public Health. He was selected to be part of the committee at the AMA national meeting in June.

“The issue of water sanitation is something that is very personal to me,” Hasnie said. “It’s a global issue that I hope to tackle and the AMA is giving me the opportunity to do that with other students around the country.”

Hasnie joined the AMA’s student section two years ago.

“The American Medical Association was an opportunity to advocate for my patients and to be part of the nation’s largest and most influential physician organization striving to increase access to healthcare for everyone,” he said.

Last year, Hasnie served on the student section’s committee on Long Range Planning. Now, he will serve a one-year term with 13 other medical students from across the country working to educate the AMA on public health topics and to organize public health initiatives.

Some of the agenda items for the year are providing educational programming at the AMA interim and annual conferences, and creating a campaign for National Public Health Week in April 2018.

At the same time, Hasnie hasn’t forgotten the people of Flint or the children in Pakistan. He said he plans to focus some of his committee’s attention on the Flint Water Crisis, firearm violence and water sanitation.