Maryland Academy of Family Physicians
Executive Director’s Message
From the Desk of the Executive Director
March 2023

Greetings MDAFP Members!

Becky Wimmer - MDAFP Executive Director

There’s been a lot of exciting things happening and I’m taking this time to share a few timely updates and work that your Academy is working on.

Call for Resolutions to AAFP Congress of Delegates – The Congress of Delegates (COD) is the Academy's policy-making body. Its membership consists of two delegates and two alternates from each constituent chapter and from the member constituencies including new physicians, residents, students, and other constituency groups represented at the National Conference of Constituency Leaders. The Congress elects new officers and three members to serve on the Board of Directors for the following 12 months. AAFP members are welcome to participate in hearings of the five reference committees: Advocacy, Education, Health of the Public and Science, Organization and Finance, and Practice Enhancement. Reference committees are committees of the COD that consider business (resolutions) items referred to them for recommendation to the COD for debate and action.

During the two and one-half-day meeting (held prior to AAFP Family Medicine Experience), the Congress agenda includes addresses from AAFP officers, resolutions from chapters, and reports from the Board of Directors and commissions.

Now is your chance to influence the policies and programs of the AAFP for the following year – submit a resolution to our chapter. On behalf of the Maryland Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors and AAFP Delegation invites members to submit resolutions for consideration to the AAFP Congress of Delegates. This is a good opportunity to influence the policies and programs of the AAFP. All resolutions must be submitted to the MDAFP office in the resolution format no later than July 1. Resolutions may be submitted.

Your MDAFP leadership team, the Board of Directors, recently did two very important things on your behalf in an effort to be relevant, mindful of your needs, effective, and an efficient organization.

First, the Strategic Plan for the next 5 years was developed. The strategic plan is a much-needed foundation from which an organization can grow and is crucial for an association as it creates a map for a business to follow and course correct when needed. It declares what constitutes success for an organization in terms of how the world will be better as a result of its work. The board was very mindful of this process and did a great job working through survey data and took other important information into consideration as they incorporated a successful strategic thinking and planning process that, ultimately, resulted in a good plan that I am optimistic will be successful.

I encourage you to take few moments to look at MDAFP’s new 2023-2027 strategic plan. It can be viewed on the website or download it for a printable document. (It can also be found on the member app, so remember to learn more and download the app!)

Second, the board did a review of the organization’s mission and vision statements. It was determined that the vision statement did not need any edits at this time. And although it was determined the current mission statement was good and met the criteria for a mission statement – purpose, vision and values – there was some minor tweaking to make it better.

VISION: Able, Responsive, Family Physicians Serving Their Communities

MISSION: To support Maryland family physicians in their efforts to promote equity and optimize the health of our state’s patients, families and communities.

These statements are always at the forefront of your leaders minds in the work they do to lead and direct the work of the academy. I know they’re proud of their work and you should be, too. Many thanks to the board for their efforts to serve Family Physicians, FM Residents and medical students in Maryland!


Becky Wimmer

MDAFP Executive Director