Roland Goertz, M.D., Elected to the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Family Physicians

WASHINGTON – Roland A. Goertz, M.D., a family physician in Waco, Texas, has been elected to the board of directors of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). The AAFP represents more than 94,000 physicians and medical students nationwide. Goertz was elected to a three-year term by the AAFP’s governing body, the Congress of Delegates.

In Goertz’s 24-year medical career, he has served as a physician in rural private practice, a family medicine residency program director at two highly regarded Texas residencies, and as chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. For the past nine years, Goertz has served as chief executive officer of the three foundations that oversee all operations of the Waco Family Practice Center. He also holds an appointment as associate clinical professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

A member of AAFP and the Texas Academy of Family Physicians (TAFP) since 1979, Goertz has served on numerous committees and commissions at the state and national level. He actively participated in the AAFP Commission on Governmental Advocacy, the AAFP task force to enhance family medicine research and the AAFP Commission on Education. Goertz served as president of the TAFP from 1994 to 1995. He has served as a delegate or alternate delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates since 2000.

Goertz is past president of the McLennan County Medical Society. He chairs the Texas higher education coordinating board’s advisory committee on family practice residencies and is president of the Texas Association of Community Health Centers. Goertz also represents family medicine on the Council of Academic Societies of the Association of American Medical Colleges. He also served as a member and chair of the Texas Medical Association’s (TMA) committee on physician workforce and distribution and a member of TMA’s council on medical education.

Locally, Goertz serves on the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce board and the Waco Business League. He is a member of the Downtown Waco Rotary Club.

Several local, regional and national organizations have recognized Goertz for his hard work and long-term dedication. The TAFP awarded him its “Philanthropist of the Year” award in 2004. In 2003, he won the organization’s “Political Action Committee Award.” Goertz was selected for “The Best Doctors of America” in 1999. He also was awarded the AAFP’s 2006 Robert Graham Family Physician Executive Award.

Goertz graduated from medical school at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1981. He then completed a residency in family medicine at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. He subsequently completed a clinical teaching fellowship in family medicine in 1986 and received a master’s degree in business administration from Baylor University in 2003.