The American Medical Association just swore in it's fourth female president, who is also only the first oncologist to hold the position, and named its first African-American female as president-elect.
Barbara L. McAneny, an Albuquerque oncologist was sworn in as the 173rd president of the AMA, and is only the organization's fourth female president. McAneny will focus her tenure on several strategic goals: removing obstacles and barriers that interfere with patient care; reimagining medical education, training for physicians to help them adapt and grow amidst digitization; and confronting the growing burden of chronic disease.
McAneny has practiced medicine in New Mexico for 35 years and is co-founder and CEO of a multi-disciplinary oncology practice, New Mexico Oncology Hematology Consultants. She also built and manages the New Mexico Cancer Center, which provides comprehensive outpatient medical and radiation oncology care and imaging at several underserved rural areas across the state.
McAneny has been an AMA board member since 2010. Prior to her election to the AMA board, she served on the board for the American Society of Clinical Oncology and was the delegate to the AMA from ASCO. At the national level, she was awarded a federal grant in 2012 to develop the Community Oncology Medical Home Model that demonstrates improved outcomes and patient satisfaction with reduced hospitalizations and costs.
In another first, the woman who will succeed McAneny will be Atlanta psychiatrist Patrice A. Harris. Harris will be the first African-American woman to lead the AMA. Harris was elected as the new president-elect of the AMA by physicians gathered at the Annual Meeting of the AMA House of Delegates in Chicago. Following a year-long term as AMA president-elect, she will be begin her tenure as AMA president in June 2019.
Harris is a private practicing physician who has also worked as a public health administrator, patient advocate and physician spokesperson, the AMA said. She has also served as board secretary, AMA board chair and co-chaired the Women Physicians Congress. She will continue to serve as chair of the AMA Opioid Task Force, and will be active on other task forces and committees including health information technology and payment and delivery reform.
Harris led efforts to integrate public and behavioral health as well as primary care services as chief health officer for Fulton County, Georgia. She also worked as medical director for the Fulton County Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.
She sees patients in private practice and consults with both public and private organizations on health service delivery and emerging trends in practice and health policy.
Both appointments come at a time when gender and racial disparities are increasingly in the spotlight in the healthcare realm and elsewhere. Salaries for physicians may have risen over the last year, but double-digit percentage differences between what men and women are paid for doing the same work prevail, according to a study from Medscape and HIMSS.
Male primary care physicians earned nearly 18 percent more than their female counterparts, averaging $239,000 versus $203,000 for women. Men in specialties earned 36 percent more than women this year and that gap has widened since last year when it was 31 percent. Men in specialties earned an average $358,000 versus $263,000 for women, a gap of more than $100,000.
Racial disparities continue in the healthcare landscape as well. Medscape found that African-American physicians earned an average $50,000 less per year than white physicians, with those numbers reaching $308,000 for white physicians versus $258,000 for black physicians.
Moreover, racial gender disparities paint a discouraging picture for African American women, who made almost $100,000 less than their male counterparts.
Twitter: @BethJSanborn
Email the writer: beth.sanborn@himssmedia.com