Two TAFP members make bids for TMA leadership roles

Support Curran and Ragain in election at TexMed 2010

posted 03.25.10

Two TAFP members will run for leadership positions in the Texas Medical Association. TAFP Past President Douglas Curran, M.D., of Athens has announced his intention to run for the Texas Medical Association Board of Trustees. Michael Ragain, M.D., of Lubbock will run for an alternate delegate position to the American Medical Association.

If elected, Curran and Ragain would join other TAFP members in the TMA leadership: Trustee Lewis Foxhall, M.D., of Houston, and Secretary/Treasurer Art Klawitter, M.D., of Needville.

Curran currently practices in Athens, Texas, as a staff physician with East Texas Medical Center and Lakeland Medical Associates, Group Practice. He has been active in TMA, TAFP, and AAFP, serving on numerous committees and in various officer roles. He currently serves on the TMA Council of Legislation; is a member of TMA’s Select Committee on Medicaid, CHIP, and the Uninsured; chaired TMA’s Select Committee on National Health System Reform; and is a member of TEXPAC. At TAFP, Curran has served as chair for the Commission on Membership and Member Services, chair of the Commission on Legislative and Public Affairs, and as an active member of TAFPPAC. He also served on the AAFP Commission for Governmental Advocacy.

Ragain currently serves as the Braddock Chair of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Department of Family and Community Medicine in Lubbock. After completing his residency training at TTUHSC, he became associate residency director for the program, then residency director. He served various other posts before being appointed Braddock Chair in 2002. Ragain is also active in TAFP and TMA. Ragain is a current member of the TAFP Commission on Academic Affairs, and has also served on the Task Force on Credentialing and the TAFP Board of Directors. Within TMA, Ragain has been a delegate and seated alternate delegate, a member on the Continuing Medical Education Committee from 1999 to 2005, and a member of the Council on Medical Education from 2005-2008 and chair of this committee in 2008-2009.

The election will be held during TexMed 2010 in Fort Worth, April 30 - May 1. Though only appointed delegates and alternate delegates in the TMA House of Delegates can officially vote, all TMA members can contribute to the conversation by attending their county medical society caucus, either through their specific county chapter or through consolidated meetings of smaller county chapters. Most caucuses meet Saturday morning from 6:30 - 8 a.m.

TAFP strongly encourages all TMA delegates, alternate delegates, and members to attend the TMA meeting and add your voice and support to Curran and Ragain, which will further amplify the voice of family medicine in the larger house of medicine.

For more information on TexMed 2010 and to access the House of Delegates’ schedule, go to www.texmed2010.org.