The TAFP Member Assembly elected the Academy’s officers, new members for the board of directors, and two representatives to the AAFP Congress of Delegates during this year’s Annual Session.
Earlier in the year, the TAFP Nominating Committee interviewed active members interested in each of the available positions and put forth a slate of candidates for consideration by delegates to the Member Assembly. The Residency Network and FMIG Network, representing residency programs and medical schools respectively, elected their candidates for the board of directors. The election was held at the Member Assembly meeting on Friday, November 8, 2024.
Lindsay Botsford, MD, MBA, CMQ, was elected to serve as TAFP President for the coming year. She is a regional medical director with One Medical, where she leads their Houston practices and cares for older adults on Medicare in a value-based model. Her passions include health care transformation, quality, leadership development, and increasing joy in practice for the health care team. She is a graduate of Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine, and completed residency training at Baylor College of Medicine’s Kelsey-Seybold Clinic. She earned an MBA at the University of Houston.
In her inaugural address to those gathered at the Annual Business and Awards Lunch, Botsford said TAFP's strength lies in its diversity. "TAFP is a place where we can have difficult conversations and unite in our shared belief in the power of primary care and how we have to make this system better for our patients, and ourselves. As much as we need organizations like TAFP to support our advocacy, its real value is in building community — our family medicine community."
Ike Okwuwa, MD, was elected to serve as the Academy's president-elect. He serves as residency program director for the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center of the Permian Basin and is chairman of the board of directors for Permian Basin Health Network, a physician-hospital organization. He graduated from the University of Benin Medical School in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria, and completed residency training at TTUHSCPB. He previously served as the new physician member and an at-large member on TAFP’s Board of Directors.
Adrian Billings, MD, PhD, was elected to the office of treasurer. He is the Chief Medical Officer of Preventative Care Health Services FQHC in the Big Bend, and he is the Associate Academic Dean of Rural and Community Engagement and Senior Fellow of the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. He has been a career-long rural community physician along the Texas-Mexico border in West Texas. Billings is passionate about enabling rural-born and educated students’ opportunities to enroll in health care training programs.
Puja Sehgal, MD, was elected to serve as TAFP’s parliamentarian. She is a practicing family physician in Houston, and currently serves as the Chief of Family Medicine Department at Kelsey-Seybold and an elected board member of Kelsey Seybold medical group. She completed medical school in India, an internship at Wichita Falls Family Medicine Residency Program, and residency at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. She is past president of the Harris County chapter and has served on various committees and councils during her 20 year membership with TAFP. She previously chaired the Section on Special Constituencies and served as vice chair of the Council on Medical Practice. She served on the TAFP board in 2020 and has mentored residents for TAFP’s Resident Leadership Experience program.
Sarah Ashitey, MD, FAAFP, was elected to serve as an at-large director on the TAFP board. She practices in a group private practice in Dallas. She trained at UT Southwestern Medical Center and John Peter Smith Hospital. Her professional work is rooted in her commitment to public health, which is evident in her roles on the Environmental Health Committee for the City of Dallas, the DISD School Health Advisory Council, and as a board member of The Immunization Partnership. She also serves on the TAFP Council for the Health of the Public and the Health Committee for West Dallas.
Rashmi Rode, MD, FAAFP, was elected to the other open at-large position on the TAFP board. She is the Associate Program Director for the Baylor College of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program in Houston. Being a voice for her patients, and her specialty, she represents at faculty senate in her institution, is the immediate past president for the Harris County chapter, has served as a Texas delegate to NCCL, and as the co-convener at NCCL in 2022. Dr. Rode completed TAFP’s FMLE program in 2017 and serves as a faculty mentor for TAFP’s similar Resident Leadership Experience program. She graduated from a leading medical school in India, and completed an OBGYN residency in India then a family medicine residency at Baylor College of Medicine.
Jessica Glick, DO, was elected to serve as a new physician director on the TAFP board of directors. She practices direct primary care in Houston. She attended the University of North Texas Health Science Center’s Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed a residency at the Conroe Family Medicine Residency. Dr. Glick graduated from TAFP’s Family Medicine Leadership Experience in 2022 and served as the Northwoods Chapter President in 2023. She was TAFP’s New Physician Delegate at AAFP’s National Conference of Constituency Leaders in 2024 and is participating in her second year as a Resident Leadership Experience mentor.
Amanda Mohammed-Strait, MD, was elected to serve as a new physician director on the TAFP board of directors. She practices as the Community Health and Engagement Lead Physician at Oak Street Health in Southeast Dallas. She graduated from Ross University School of Medicine in Dominica, West Indies, and completed her family medicine residency training in Dallas at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Hospital. She was named the 2021 TAFP Humanitarian of the Year Award recipient.
Madeline Hazle, MD, was elected as the resident director on the TAFP board. She is a third-year family medicine resident at UT Health San Antonio, where she also completed medical school. She previously served as the student member on the TAFP board and has held several other leadership positions at both the state and national level, including her role as the current resident representative to the AAFP Commission on Membership and Member Services.
Shreya Mallena was elected to serve as the student director on the TAFP board. She is a fourth-year medical student at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. For her undergraduate degrees in public health and biochemistry, she attended the University of Texas at Austin where she discovered her passion for public health and medicine.
Tricia Elliott, MD, FAAFP, was elected to be a delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates. She is senior vice president of academic and research affairs, Chief Academic Officer, and DIO at JPS Health Network. She received her medical degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch and completed a residency in family medicine at Albert Einstein/Montefiore Medical Center Residency Program in Social Medicine in Bronx, New York. She has provided clinical and administrative leadership across various types of health systems, including academic medical centers, a multi-specialty group practice, and a community-based, university-affiliated teaching hospital.
Clare Hawkins, MD, FAAFP, was elected to serve as one of TAFP’s alternate delegates to the AAFP Congress of Delegates. He is the Texas Chief Medical Officer at Main Street Health. He graduated medical school in 1984 and served in academic medicine as an undergraduate and postgraduate faculty in Canada with a master’s degree in community health. He was recruited to the Houston area, becoming Family Medicine Residency Director from 1998 to 2015. He completed the Certificate of Added Qualification in Hospice and Palliative Care in 2010 and recognition of focused practice in hospital medicine in 2014.