Care and advocacy for LGBTQ+ patients drive NCCL leader

Marisa Iaderosa, MD, MPH, AAHIVS, spent a lot of time in her father’s primary care practice as a child, where she witnessed the love he had for his work and the love his patients had for their doctor.

Still, Iaderosa wasn’t convinced that medicine was the right career for her.

“I was determined to do something different,” said Iaderosa, who studied sociology at the University of Michigan, “but I kept coming back to medicine. Most of my classes were health care oriented and health-outcomes based. I was drawn to the bigger picture of why there are health disparities and how policy, historical context and urban development play a role. I also liked the hard sciences and working directly with individuals. I kept trying to not do medicine, but eventually I realized this is what I felt called to do.”

Finding a home in family medicine

Iaderosa took a gap year after graduation, working as a patient advocate in a federally qualified health center. She helped patients with insurance enrollment and accessing resources like food assistance programs.

“It was essentially a one-stop shop for patients who already have a challenging time navigating the health care system,” she said. “I loved how family physicians had that wide breadth of knowledge and personal relationships with patients.”

Iaderosa said she was torn between careers in public health and family medicine. She applied and was accepted to schools of medicine and public health, ultimately choosing Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.

“Halfway through medical school, I thought, ‘I can't do this without public health,’” she said, “so I added an extra year during medical school and got a public health degree as well.”

National Conference of Constituency Leaders prepares members for advocacy

She matched in the Grant Family Medicine Residency, drawn to the Columbus, Ohio, program partly by its reputation for advocacy training.

“It was a really good experience, learning how to be politically involved,” said Iaderosa, who serves on the Ohio AFP’s Public Policy Workgroup.

Grant graduate Kelly Thibert, DO, FAAFP, will be the convener of the 2027 National Conference of Constituency Leaders, which is the AAFP’s leadership development event for members who are women; new physicians; international medical graduates; Black, indigenous or people of color (BIPOC); physicians with disabilities; and LGBTQ+ physicians and allies.

Grant faculty (and graduate) Matthew Adkins, DO, FAAFP, is a former new physician member of the AAFP Board of Directors, and Grant program director Roma Amin, MD, FAAFP, has served as a member constituency co-convener at NCCL and a member constituency alternate delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates.

All of those leadership roles, and more, are filled during elections at NCCL. Iaderosa said encouragement from the Ohio AFP and her residency network led her to attend NCCL for the first time in April. She arrived in Kansas City, Missouri, with a campaign speech in hand.

Stepping into AAFP leadership

“My chapter encouraged us to write our speeches ahead of time so that we could both practice writing and giving speeches,” she said. “It was a really welcoming environment, so it felt like a good opportunity to try running for a position and giving a speech in a professional setting. It worked out. It was great experience.”

Iaderosa, whose area of concentration at Grant was LGBTQ care, was elected as co-convener of the LGBTQ+ constituency. Her organization, Equitas Health, is a regional, nonprofit health system founded more than 40 years ago to provide HIV care. It has since expanded to provide adult primary care. She said more than three-fourths of her patients are from the LGBTQ+ community.

At NCCL, she connected with family physicians with passion for similar work.

“It was really nice to talk to folks from all over the country about how they're navigating the political environment and share information,” she said. “It’s a challenge for a lot of different people right now, working for marginalized populations or being a part of a marginalized community. There were a lot of opportunities to learn what the Academy is doing and how to get more involved. I'm really glad I got to go.”

Iaderosa was not one of the constituency co-conveners also elected to serve as an alternate delegate to the Academy’s Congress of Delegates, but she does plan to attend. Though only delegates can vote in the proceedings, all AAFP members can submit written testimony on resolutions and testify during the in-person, extracted items reference committee hearings.

“It will be great to be a part of the conversations about the resolutions being proposed and to see how it actually works,” she said.

Building community through family medicine

Iaderosa attended a party for her father, Pasquale Iaderosa, MD, when he retired last year and was reminded why primary care was the right choice for her.

“So many of his patients were at his retirement party,” she said. “They were so sad to see him go but also so excited for him. He speaks Italian and Spanish, so he had a lot of patients whose first language was not English. They loved being able to come to the doctor and speak their native language. They would bring him produce from their gardens. It was a community.”

Iaderosa has found her own community in Columbus.

“I feel really blessed and privileged,” she said. “My organization is very supportive because that's what we're founded on, providing care for this marginalized community. So many people in this community are being villainized all the time politically and socially. Being involved in the AAFP and my chapter felt like an opportunity that I had within my power to actually do something about it on a large scale.”