Her Leadership Path Has Come Full Circle
May 7, 2018 08:38 am David Mitchell – Kisha Davis, M.D., M.P.H., of Gaithersburg, Md., was one year removed from family medicine residency when Jay Lee, M.D., M.P.H., of Venice, Calif., nudged her onto the specialty's leadership path.
"He encouraged me to do something outside my comfort zone and run for a position," Davis said. "I had no idea what I was getting into."
Davis and Lee were their respective state chapter's minority physician delegates at the 2008 National Conference of Special Constituencies (now the National Conference of Constituency Leaders, or NCCL) when Davis ran for -- and won -- a role as one of the AAFP delegates to the AMA's Young Physicians Section.
She has been running, and serving, ever since.
Davis served as a White House fellow in 2011-12 and then represented new physicians as a co-convener at NCCL and as a delegate at the Academy's Congress of Delegates before serving as the AAFP's new physician member of the Board of Directors. More recently, she has served as president and past president of the Maryland AFP.
Davis, who balances her leadership roles with full-time work and a family with three young children, has a new position to add to her resume after recently being elected convener of the 2019 NCCL, which is scheduled for April 25-27 in Kansas City, Mo.
"I love this conference," Davis said April 27 during 2018 NCCL in Kansas City. "It's where I got my start. I feel like I owe all of that to the leadership training I got at this conference. That's why I want to help run NCCL, so people can see and develop their own leadership potential."
Davis' day jobs include seeing patients in an integrative health care clinic that offers a wide range of services, including primary care, clinical psychology, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, chiropractic, nutrition, health coaching and massage therapy. She also works as a project manager for CFAR, the management consulting firm guiding the Family Medicine for America's Health initiative. Davis has been involved with the initiative's tactic teams related to technology, payment reform and practice transformation.
"My role is to keep the volunteer army of family physicians who work on these projects working together and moving forward," she said.