Team Accountability

APMA is accountable to you, its members, in everything we do.

Through your state representatives to the House of Delegates, you elect APMA’s leaders, adopt recommendations, and determine directions for the association and our profession. Through your daily input to staff and member leadership, you have a direct influence on the programs and products we create. For example, I hope you have seen our newly redesigned Web site, www.apma.org. This fantastic tool was built with the input you provided in your conversations with staff, in your communications survey feedback, and in the extensive user research we conducted among members and other users.

In my speech to the 2012 House of Delegates, I spoke about the concept of accountability and how it shapes a team. Your association will always be accountable to you. But in order for our profession to achieve its greatest goals, you too must be accountable; every member of the profession must be accountable to the whole.

You can be accountable in a variety of ways. I recently spent a day visiting congressional offices to advocate for APMA and its members. You may not have time to fly to Washington, DC, to meet with your legislators, but I exhort you again to use the eAdvocacy section of the website at www.apma.org/eAdvocacy to communicate with your legislators. The new site combines state and federal resources, making it one of our most convenient, efficient advocacy tools ever. It takes only a few minutes to send messages to your state and national leaders. APMA’s advocacy team keeps the site up-to-date with prepopulated messages about critical, timely issues in each state legislature and in Congress. You can quickly personalize these messages and send them to your lawmakers. Also, your senators and representatives have local offices. Please make an effort to meet your legislators while they are home. A strong proactive grassroots effort by our members is essential if we want to achieve successful outcomes on Capitol Hill.

I also encourage you to be aware of the other opportunities you have to represent podiatric medicine, not just to lawmakers, but to other key stakeholders. APMA’s CEO and Executive Director Glenn Gastwirth, DPM, and I recently had a chance to sit down with Jeremy Lazarus, MD, President of the American Medical Association. Dr. Lazarus is a great friend to podiatric medicine and has been very helpful to us in forging stronger ties to AMA. We asked him about what more we could do to enhance our relationship with the allopathic medical community. His first suggestion was to encourage our state associations and members to work closely with their state medical societies. Dr. Lazarus underscored the importance of local relationships and local involvement, and I want to emphasize for each of you just how valuable your involvement with your health-care colleagues can be. For example, vascular surgeons are among the most important members of our health-care team. If you do not have a relationship with a vascular surgeon in your community, it is time that you form one. Also, have you taken the opportunity to join the Society of Vascular Surgery as a physician member?

And please do not forget about the osteopathic medical community. DOs have been great friends and colleagues to most of us. APMA has had a long and positive relationship with the American Osteopathic Association.

Getting involved with other health-care professions doesn’t have to take place through formal meetings or state society-endorsed events. Even a simple volunteer role can introduce you—and podiatric medicine—to members of other specialties.

Our APMA team is only as strong as its weakest link. We need you to be accountable to our association, our profession, and to our APMA team.