Oregon Physician Elected to the American Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors

BOSTON — Robert Stenger, M.D., M.P.H., a family physician in Portland, Ore., has been elected to the board of directors of the American Academy of Family Physicians. The AAFP represents more than 94,600 physicians and medical students nationwide. Stenger was elected to a one-year term by the National Congress of Family Medicine Residents and confirmed by the AAFP’s governing body, the Congress of Delegates.

As the resident member of the board of directors, Stenger is responsible for representing the interests and opinions of the National Congress of Family Medicine Residents to the AAFP Board of Directors and Congress of Delegates. In addition, he will advocate on behalf of family physicians and patients nationwide to inspire positive change in the U.S. health care system.

A member of the AAFP since 2001, Stenger currently serves on the AAFP Commission on Education and has been the resident delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates. He chaired the 2009 National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and participated in the 2009 Family Medicine Congressional Conference. In addition, Stenger has been active in the Oregon Academy of Family Physicians. Since 2007, he has been a member of the Oregon AFP Legislative Committee, and in 2008 – 2009, he served a one-year term as the resident member of the Oregon AFP Board of Directors.

Currently completing his medical training in family and preventive medicine at the Oregon Health and Sciences University, Stenger is chief resident in preventive medicine. This year, he is helping develop a practice transformation curriculum that will give residents the skills they need to build their future practices into patient-centered medical homes. He also is working with the Office for Oregon Health Policy and Research to implement a statewide program that promotes the patient-centered medical home.

Stenger graduated from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2006 and completed his master’s degree in public health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2005. His hometown is Missoula, Mont., and he attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash.

As a medical student Stenger served as national chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges Organization of Student Representatives and co-convener of a Capitol Hill Summit on Medical Student Debt, organized by the AAMC, the American College of Physicians and the American Medical Student Association. He also served on the Medical School Advisory Committee of the National Board of Medical Examiners.

In 2006, Stenger received the AMA Foundation Medical Student Leadership Award and the Sol Goldman Award for Geriatrics from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.