Member of the Month 2012
Meet the 2012 Members of the Month
January | Lisa Doggett, MD, MPH | Austin
Austin physician “makes a difference” by caring for the underserved
In her 10 years as a family physician, Dr. Doggett has dedicated her career to caring for the uninsured, underinsured, and others in need, following in the footsteps of her parents for whom “public service is a way of life.”
February | John Redman, MD, MS | Anahuac
New physician drawn to breadth of specialty, serving the underserved
Dr. Redman is a family physician at Bayside Clinic, a federally qualified health center 50 miles east of Houston, where he serves the poor and indigent of Chambers County. He felt drawn to work at an FQHC because of his residency training at the Waco Family Medicine Program, another FQHC, and because he enjoys helping patients who would not otherwise have access to health care.
March | Dustin Pratt, MD | Childress
Family physician practices full-spectrum medicine in rural Texas
Dr. Pratt is a family physician in the small rural town of Childress, Texas, halfway between Wichita Falls and Amarillo in the Texas panhandle. He enjoys the diversity of family medicine, and certainly practices the full spectrum in his local clinic and hospital, though he worries about the “ever increasing difficulty to recruit new physicians that do full spectrum family medicine.”
April | Ikemefuna Charles Okwuwa, MD | Odessa
Resident dreams of teaching, tells first-years to “seize every opportunity”
Dr. Okwuwa is a third-year resident at Texas Tech Health Science Center Department of Family Medicine in Odessa, Texas. Though now a U.S. citizen, he was born in Nigeria and received medical training at the School of Medicine at the University of Benin in Nigeria. He loves family medicine for the variety and hopes to join his residency’s faculty to give back to future physicians what he has received from his residency mentors.
May | Edwin Franks, MD | Iraan
TAFP Life Member recalls the golden years of family medicine
Edwin R. Franks, MD, now retired, practiced family medicine for 51 years in the small rural town of Iraan, Texas – pronounced “Ira-Ann,” a mash-up of the names of a cattle rancher and his wife. Over his career, he delivered 3,000 babies, spanning generations, and saw the full spectrum of family medicine, “from soup to nuts,” as he said when he sat down with TAFP at the C. Frank Webber Lectureship in March 2012.
June | Christina Kelly, MD | Harker Heights
New physician finds renewal for specialty through AAFP involvement
As an Army wife, Christina Kelly, MD, has worked in a variety of practice settings — from employed to part-time residency program faculty to her current position as civilian faculty at the Family Medicine Residency at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. She has been involved in the Academy on the state and national level since medical school, feeling re-energized for family medicine with each conference.
July | Troy Russell | San Antonio
TAFP student member chooses family medicine through passion for public health, research
A fourth-year medical student, Troy Russell is certain that family medicine is the right specialty for him as it combines his passions for research, public health, and continuity of care. He feels fortunate to be joining the profession in a time when family physicians can reshape the medical profession for the better.
August | Tamarah Duperval-Brownlee, MD, MPH | Austin
Lone Star Circle of Care executive strives to help the underserved
A Chicago native, Dr. Tamarah Duperval-Brownlee moved to Texas in March 2011 to take the reins at Lone Star Circle of Care, a federally qualified health center with 26 locations across four counties in Central Texas. She’s passionate about access to care and patient-centered medicine.
September | Elizabeth Tran, MD | Houston
Resident member drawn to medicine through international volunteer work
Now chief resident for the Baylor Family Residency Program in Houston, Elizabeth Tran, MD, joined the U.S. Peace Corps after graduating from college to learn about other cultures, and at the same time gained a deep appreciation for her own life: her family and friends, health, and education. She realized she wanted to help people improve their lives through their health, which led her to pursue family- and community-based medicine with a focus on women’s health.
October | Jorge Duchicela, MD | Weimar
Physician serves rural Texas and Ecuador through practice, institute
Jorge Duchicela, MD, is a rural private practice physician in Weimar where he serves a community of patients that is diverse in ethnicity, age, gender, geographical location, and social stratum. He also founded Cachamsi, a nonprofit medical immersion institute, in Cacha, Ecuador, that brings health professionals to this rural community to care for the patients there, learn Spanish so they can better communicate with their Spanish-speaking patients at home, and learn global and cross-cultural medicine.
November | Charles J. Caskey, MD | Beaumont
Life member reflects on life, medicine, and caring for patients like family
At age 84, 11 years after retirement from the Beaumont practice he ran for more than 40 years, Charles “Chuck” Caskey, MD, still visits with former patients and staff members. He watched medicine change greatly during this time, sometimes for the better and sometimes not, as he says, but his patients were like family and they made each day worth it.
December | Jerry Abraham, MPH | San Antonio
Student member is a leader in the world of medicine
Jerry Abraham, MPH, a third-year medical student at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, is a busy man, to put it simply. He is a representative, delegate, member, and president to several organizations and committees throughout the state and around the world, including chair to the Academy’s Section on Medical Students. His love of people and desire to contribute to the greater good of public health drove him to choose primary care as a specialty.