User Profile

THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, ITS MEDICAL STUDENT SECTION, OR ANY OTHER ORGANIZATION. IT REFLECTS ONLY THE PERSONAL OPINIONS OF THE AUTHOR.

This weblog was dedicated to my campaign for AMA-MSS Chair-Elect at and before the 2004 Interim Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. I ran for Chair because I believe our MSS could be doing much more to serve our membership. We as an organization need to be more visibly active, more innovative in our advocacy and our communication, and more open in our governance. I've been an active member of the MSS for four years and I've also served in the leadership of three other major national student organizations, and I believe that's given me the experience to lead our AMA-MSS into its full potential.

Now that I've been elected, this journal is going to change into a chronicle of my activities as Chair-Elect, Chair, and Immediate Past Chair. My hope is that by making more information available, I'll be more accountable to the members I'm supposed to serve, and that you in turn will better understand what your Governing Council is doing and how to get involved.

The basics about me: I'm an MD/PhD student in my research years in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. My medical training is through the University of Pittsburgh. I previously served as your student representative to the AMPAC Board of Directors, and as the Chair of the AMA-MSS Task Force on Medical Education Debt. You can find some of the task force's work here. On the side, I coordinate the campaign for the Higher Education Affordability & Equity Act, a bill to provide tax incentives for graduate and professional education. This is a grassroots student campaign that's gone from just me and some friends to a nationwide push, with a bill that we helped write and more Congresspeople signed on as cosponsors every day. Even if you don't read the rest of this blog, please do check out the HEAEA pages and write your Representative about it!

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