FP to lead preventive services task force
The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research recently announced the appointment of a family physician to head a prestigious national task force.
Alfred Berg, M.D., M.P.H., of Seattle will chair the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of preventive health experts first convened in 1984 by the U.S. Public Health Service. It evaluates scientific evidence for the effectiveness of clinical preventive services and produces age-specific and risk-factor recommendations.
Berg is professor and acting chair of the University of Washington's family medicine department. He served on the task force from 1990 to 1995, was co-chair of the AHCPR-sponsored Otitis Media Guideline Panel from 1991 to 1995, and was chair and moderator for the 1993 Sexually Transmitted Diseases Treatment Guideline Panel of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"It's appropriate to have a family physician heading the task force because all of the recommendations they issue relate to the practice of family medicine," said Herbert Young, M.D., AAFP Scientific Activities Division director.
Berg will be joined by two other FPs on the 14-member panel: Paul Frame, M.D., of Cohocton, N.Y., and Steven Woolf, M.D., M.P.H., of Fairfax, Va.
Frame is a practicing physician and clinical associate professor of family medicine at the University of Rochester in New York. Woolf is professor of family medicine at the Medical College of Virginia-Virginia Commonwealth University in Fairfax.
Young noted that all three men have been leaders in Academy activities: Woolf chairs the Policy Team on Diabetes, Frame has served on the Task Force to Enhance Family Practice Research, and Berg has worn several hats, including his current one as medical editor for the AAFP Home Study Self-Assessment monographs.
