The National Medical Association – Region 1 held a Zoom meeting on November 29, 2024 at 7:30PM, led by its regional Director, Dr, Monique Dufour-Jones, MS, MS, MBA.
Region 1 includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts. New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont and the Virgin Islands. There were 21 members in attendance who reported on the activities of their different affiliated societies.
The McCune Smith-Cordice Society was represented by its president, Dr. Louis J Auguste, MD, MPH and he gave a report on the activities of the society over the past year, including the multiple community services focusing on health literacy. This year, members of the society gave well received presentations on Prostate Cancer, Colon Cancer, Cardiac Health and over the past month, several presentations on Breast cancer.
Dr. Auguste discussed also its mentoring endeavors as part of an agreement with District 29 of the NY Board of Education to offer mentoring to the adolescents attending the schools in this district. Dr. Auguste also reported that the society had 70 dues paying members who practice in Queens, Brooklyn, Nassau, Bronx, Connecticut, New Jersey and Florida.
The society has established a directory of black physicians in the area, to facilitate referral of patients between the members and across specialties, in order to provide more culturally sensitive care to our population and support of independent and employed black physicians.
This sparked a discussion regarding the possible creation of an accurate and up-to-date directory of all physicians in Region – 1. Concerns were expressed regarding the time and manpower that would be needed to carry out such task. It was suggested that directories such as the one created by McCune Smith Cordice Society could be replicated by the different member societies and integrated to create that comprehensive directory.
The Region – 1 annual conference will be held in the US Virgin Islands next year from May 22 to May 26, 2025. The program director is Dr. Ronke Ramos and the theme will be “Navigation of Health”. Everyone interested in presenting or participating can contact Dr. Ramos or Dr. Jones at the following address region1@nmanet.org.
Finally, everyone was reminded that NMA dues must be paid by the end of this year. In order to maintain the affiliation with NMA, at least 10 members and the president of each society must be in good standing regarding their annual membership dues.
The meeting adjourned at 9:00PM.
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