Meet the TAFP Board candidates

Two TAFP members are running for one available at-large position on the TAFP Board of Directors, to be voted on at TAFP’s first Member Assembly, taking place Friday, July 25 in San Antonio at Annual Session and Scientific Assembly.

Adrian Billings, M.D., is a full spectrum family medicine physician with Presidio County Health Services, a federally qualified health center, in rural Marfa and Presidio. He also serves as an associate professor of family and community medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center-Permian Basin and a clinical assistant professor with the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Billings is a graduate of Texas A&M University and the University of Texas Medical Branch, holding a Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Pathology in addition to his medical degree. He completed a family medicine residency at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, where he also served as chief resident.

After residency, Billings helped initiate and completed an obstetrics fellowship at John Peter Smith Hospital. He was awarded a National Health Service Corps Scholarship from the federal government and completed the service obligation in 2011 in Alpine, Texas while in private practice. In 2012 Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the United States Department of Health and Human Services nominated Billings to a three-year term on the National Advisory Council of the National Health Service Corps. He has also assisted in the development of a new rural family medicine residency program with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center-Permian Basin that will matriculate its first residents this July.

A TAFP member since his first year of medical school in 1999, Billings is currently chair of the Commission on Membership and Member Services and previously served as both chair and vice-chair of the Section on Rural Physicians. He has also been a member on the Commission on Core Delegation, Executive Committee, Commission on Academic Affairs, and Commission on Legislative and Public Affairs. He has a particular interest in women’s health, surgical obstetrics, and preventive care for children.

Mike McCrady, M.D., is a family practice hospitalist at Mother Frances Hospital and the Lewis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital in Tyler, Texas. A graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University and the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, McCrady completed his family medicine training at St. Paul and Parkland hospitals in Dallas. There he was co-chief resident for the family medicine residency and president of the house staff for St. Paul Hospital.

McCrady practiced as a primary care family physician for twenty-five years, first as a solo practitioner in Henderson, Texas, and then as a member of the Trinity Clinic, part of the Trinity Mother Frances Hospitals and Clinics, joining in the initial year of that organization. He went on to serve as the first president of the Trinity Clinic Board of Directors and later as Regional Medical Director and Vice-President of Clinic Operations. During that time, McCrady obtained a Master’s of Health Care Administration from the University of Texas at Dallas and also hosted a weekly radio interview program called Health Matters, which highlighted local health care professionals.

A lifelong member of TAFP, McCrady has served as the board representative from East Texas, as well as on the Executive and Finance Committees. His interests include medical economics, medical education, and hospital-based family medicine. He is a frequent speaker and mentor at the University of Texas at Tyler Family Medicine Residency Program.