AAFP Names 2022–2023 Board of Directors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022

Contact:
Janelle Davis 
Public Relations Strategist 
American Academy of Family Physicians
(913) 912-0377
jdavis@aafp.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Academy of Family Physicians held elections for its board of directors this week at its annual Congress of Delegates, the organization’s governing body. Members of the board of directors advocate on behalf of family physicians and patients nationwide to inspire positive change in the U.S. health care system. The AAFP represents 130,000 physicians and medical students.

New Board of Directors Officers

• Tochi Iroku-Malize, MD, MPH, MBA, FAAFP, is president. She is a family physician in Long Island, New York. She serves as founding chair and professor of family medicine for the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell in Hempstead, New York, and chair of the Department of Family Medicine for Northwell Health.
  
  
• Steven P. Furr, MD, FAAFP, was elected president-elect. Furr is a family physician in Jackson, Alabama, where he co-founded the Family Medical Clinic of Jackson, which also supports a small, rural hospital and a local nursing home. Furr has cared for patients for more than 35 years, including providing obstetric care for more than 25 years.
  
  
• Sterling N. Ransone, Jr., MD, FAAFP, is board chair. He is a third-generation family physician in Deltaville, Virginia, and has practiced rural medicine for more than 20 years. He currently serves as physician practice director at Riverside Fishing Bay Family Practice. He also serves as an assistant clinical professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. He served as AAFP president in 2021-2022.
  
  
• Russell W. Kohl, MD, FAAFP, was re-elected speaker of the AAFP Congress of Delegates. Kohl is a family physician living in Stilwell, Kansas, and serves as chief medical officer with TMF Health Quality Institute, a Medicare quality improvement organization serving Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
  
  
• Daron W. Gersch, MD, FAAFP, was re-elected vice-speaker of the AAFP Congress of Delegates. He is a family physician with CentraCare in Long Prairie, Minnesota, where he also serves as the emergency room medical and trauma director at CentraCare’s critical care hospital. Gersch also currently serves as the medical director at Mother of Mercy nursing home in Albany, Minnesota.

New Board Members

These individuals were elected to three-year terms as members of the board of directors:

• Kisha Davis, MD, MPH, FAAFP, is vice president of health equity at Aledade in Bethesda, Maryland. She is also vice-chair of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), advising Congress, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and states on Medicaid policy.
  
  
• Jay Lee, MD, MPH, FAAFP, is chief medical officer at Share Our Selves, a federally qualified health center in Orange County, California. Lee co-founded the Family Medicine Revolution, a grassroots social media brand (#FMRevolution) giving the power of telling family medicine’s story to family physicians. He has been recognized by the California Academy of Family Physicians and the Primary Care Collaborative for his contributions to family medicine.
  
  
• Teresa L. Lovins, MD, FAAFP, is physician and owner at Lovin My Health DPC in her hometown of Columbus, Indiana. The practice, which opened during the COVID-19 pandemic, is a direct primary care clinic that provides personalized care without the influence of third-party restrictions. She previously worked in a variety of practice settings and served in many leadership roles with the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians.
   

These individuals were elected to one-year terms:

• Rupal B. Bhingradia, MD, FAAFP, FCUCM, is the new physician member of the board of directors. Bhingradia is chief medical officer at Medexcel USA, where she oversees more than 25 urgent care offices in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. In addition, she serves as an urgent care physician at New York Doctors Urgent Care and on the advisory council for Master Clinicians, a CME company focused on education in urgent care, telemedicine and hospital medicine.
  
  
• Chase Mussard, MD, is the resident member of the board of directors. He is a third-year family medicine resident at Oregon Health and Science University. As a medical student, Mussard was active in East Tennessee University’s Family Medicine Interest Group and has served in multiple national leadership positions for the AAFP.
  
  
• Richard Easterling is the student member of the board of directors. He is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Easterling serves on the Mississippi Academy of Family Physicians board of directors as well as on the AAFP Commission on Federal and State Policy.

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