2024 IAFP Annual Meeting Highlights

The Illinois Academy of Family Physicians (IAFP) members and leaders gathered to recognize 22 Fellows of the American Academy of Family Physicians (FAAFP) install the new board of directors and present their annual IAFP Awards.

AAFP Board member Jay W. Lee, MD, MPH, FAAFP from Huntington Beach, California provided the official installation for the 2024-25 newly elected IAFP board members:
President-elect Dr. Corinne Kohler
First Vice President Dr. Santina Wheat
Second Vice President Dr. Syed “Mustafa” Alavi

Class of 2027 Board members
Dr. Romero Santiago
Dr. Eric Sullivan
Dr. Jennifer Thomas
New Physician Board member class of 2026 Dr. Sydney Doe.
Delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates Dr. Monica Fudala Melendy
Alternate Delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates Dr. Santina Wheat.

Resident board member Dr. Ashley Schaefer is training at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital Family Medicine Residency in Park Ridge and Student Board Member Natali Smiley is at Rush University School of Medicine. You can view the entire board of directors here.

Dr. Kathleen “Kate” Rowland who practices at Rush Family Medicine in Chicago was installed as President of the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians. In her inauguration speech she said:
“Sometimes our work feels far from the comprehensive, continuous, coordinated, first-contact care we are trained to provide. A few years ago, I spent a week at the at the Center for the History of Family Medicine, digging through the archives and reading about our specialty. I learned there that this has always been a difficult profession. There has never been a time when it was “easy” to be a family physician. Today we are not anywhere we have not been before.

The basic truth is that people need- have always needed- will always need- trained generalists to care for them in their communities. That fact did not change with indoor plumbing, the automobile, or the internet. It won’t change with private equity, and it won’t change with AI. We’ll learn, we’ll advocate, we’ll take action, and we will do all of those things better as part of this strong organization.”

Kate Rowland, MD, MS , FAAFP is an associate professor at Rush University, Vice Chair for Education, and a family physician at Rush University Family Physicians in Chicago. She is also an associate medical editor for the AAFP’s FP Essentials series. She is a graduate of Rush Medical College and the Advocate Illinois Masonic Family Medicine residency and the University of Chicago primary care research fellowship. She is a regular speaker at AAFP FMX, and other live CME courses. She has played an integral role as Essential Evidence Update faculty for IAFP since we first started hosting their conferences in 2014. She's been active with the IAFP since residency. As a long-time member of the IAFP Family Medicine Educators' Committee, she helped create and shape the IAFP's Annual Resident Scholarly Works Virtual Summit. She has held every position on the IAFP Board, including Treasurer. Dr. Rowland lives in Naperville with her husband, Joe Kozminski and their three children.

Fellows of the American Academy of Family Physicians confirmed on this day:

Ayoade O Akere MD, FAAFP
Syed Mustafa Alavi MD, FAAFP
Syeda Kulsoom Ali MD, FAAFP
Joshua R Ellison MD, FAAFP
Dominique Fons MD, FAAFP
Lianne Holloway MD, FAAFP
Justin James Holschbach MD, FAAFP
Shennin Yuen Hudoba MD, FAAFP
Abrar Ali Husain MD, MBA, FAAFP
Joyce Johnson MD, FAAFP
Ryan Matthew Jozwiak MD, FAAFP
Ariel H Leifer, MD, FAAFP
Valerie Visitacion Mayuga MD, FAAFP
Robert F Martin DO, FAAFP
Aaron Newcomb DO, FAAFP
Ria Luz Parcellano Framski MD, FAAFP
Bernadette M Ray MD, FAAFP
Amy Schroeder MD, FAAFP
Alap Pradip Shah, MD, FAAFP
Raj C Shah MD, FAAFP
Shital Tanna MD, FAAFP
Johnny Tenegra, MD, FAAFP

President’s Awards
The IAFP President of the previous year chooses this award from among members or organizations that have had a profound impact on the President personally or advanced the Academy’s mission in the past year. Emma Daisy, MD selected the following two members for 2024 President’s Awards.

Janet Nwaukoni, DO
Dr. Nwaukoni graduated from the Northwestern McGaw Family Medicine Residency program at Lake Forest in June. From the moment she arrived after graduating from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, she quickly immersed herself in opportunities offered by Family Medicine Midwest, IAFP and AAFP. She was elected as the resident on the AAFP board of directors in October 2023 in Chicago. In all her leadership positions, she relished the times offered to connect with resident members in Illinois and across the country. Her boundless passion for family medicine and enthusiasm for connecting with everyone, from medical students to AAFP leadership, recording podcasts and webinars and even inspiring high school students through interviews with HOSA-Health Professionals clubs.

“When I entered Family Medicine, I expected to be surrounded by like-minded individuals. What I didn't know was that I would find my 'forever people,' those willing to lift me up when I needed it most,” said Nwaukoni. “Residency was no easy feat, and as I spoke to so many colleagues who were jaded, burnt out, and barely survived residency, I realized my experience was not the same and that was because of doors and opportunities opened with through the Academies.”

Evelyn Figueroa, MD
Dr. Figueroa and her husband, IAFP member Dr. Alex Wu founded the Figueroa-Wu Family Foundation back in 2017 to personally deliver over $100,000 in supplies to Puerto Rico post-hurricane Maria. In 2018, Dr. Figueroa launched the Pilsen Food Pantry at the UI-Pilsen Family Health Clinic. Demand quickly outgrew that location, and the Pilsen Food Panty relocated to a de-consecrated church and added a Clothes Closet in 2020. Today it flourishes in its new home on Ashland Ave. in Pilsen.

In 2022 she created the IAFP UI-Pilsen Food Pantry Experience Summer Externship. This unique opportunity for a first- or second-year medical student combines clinical family medicine with social determinants of health insight gained through service at the Pilsen Food Pantry. One of those former externs, Haley Bylina went on to become the 2023 student member on the IAFP Board of Directors.

In 2021 Figueroa received the AAFP’s Humanitarian Award. In 2022 she received the Martin Luther King Legacy Award from the Chicago Bulls and she and Wu were named Community Impact Heroes by the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago.

In her acceptance, Dr. Figueroa said: “Being a family doctor well-engaged in my community motivates me to keep pushing forward and to have hope. The anti-poverty programs of our foundation will reach over 60,000 visitors this year and being in a position to fill unmet community needs broadly gives me hope. To be able to connect this labor of love to family medicine education brings hundreds of learners into an alternative space to explore social drivers, health equity, and activism. Let’s continue to think outside the box and bring meaningful change.”

Vincent D. Keenan Award for Servant Leadership
Steven K. Rothschild, MD – RUSH University

Established in 2022, the award is named for the IAFP’s long-serving chapter executive Vincent D. Keenan, CAE who retired in 2020, and recognizes outstanding Illinois physicians in public health who embody one or more of the following qualities:
• Dedicates career to public health.
• Has worked or led public health initiatives beyond their normal practice in service to their community.
• Improves population-level health outcomes through their work.
• Works to enhance health equity through ongoing initiatives within the workplace or their community.

Dr. Deborah Edberg and Dr. Kate Rowland both nominated Dr. Rothschild. Dr. Edberg developed and founded the RUSH Esperanza Family Medicine Residency Program and Dr. Rowland is a professor of Family Medicine at RUSH University.

Dr. Rothschild’s career has centered around the health of the public with a focus on health equity and the reduction of health disparities among vulnerable communities throughout Chicago. His longtime clinical practice cares for hundreds of very devoted abuelas and many other patients from the west side of Chicago. He also serves as a member of the Chicago Board of Health as a voice for primary care and preventive medicine, leading by example in addressing the social determinants of health.

Dr. Rothschild is an accomplished community-based researcher, focusing on the effectiveness of community health workers. He would allow no research to move forward without the support and input of engaged community members. For over two decades, Dr. Rothschild secured grants from various organizations including Health and Human Services - HHS, private foundations, and the NIH as well as the NIH totaling millions of dollars to investigate best practices in reducing health disparities.

In his acceptance speech, Dr. Rothschild said
“I am deeply honored to receive this award named for Vince Keenan, a fellow south-sider, and someone who spent over three decades working to build family medicine in Illinois. I also want to acknowledge the others whose efforts have made it possible for me to be here today: Pioneering leaders like Dr. Erich Brueschke, my first chair, and Dr. Carolyn Lopez, and my Rush predecessor Dr. Bill Schwer. Mostly I want to thank the talented family doctors I get to work with every day and who make me look good: [IAFP] President Dr. Kate Rowland, past president Dr. Mike Hanak, Dr. Raj Shah, (and) emerging leaders such as doctors Stefani Beard, Eric Sullivan, Michael Cacoilo, and Sydney Doe. I also want to acknowledge the next generation of Family Medicine troublemakers, our 32 outstanding residents at the Rush-Copley Family Medicine Residency and the Rush Esperanza Health Centers Family Medicine Residency, including IAFP Resident Teacher of the Year Dr. Michael Chung, as well as our amazing Rush Family Medicine Leadership students like IAFP student [board member], Natali Smiley. 

I have dedicated my career to a vision of health equity in which everyone has access to comprehensive, compassionate health care, and I am here to say that family physicians are not only the heart of that vision, but we are also the muscle, and the brain needed to achieve it. Thanks to all of you for this recognition, and for working tirelessly for the health of people across our state.”

Resident Teacher of the Year 
Michael Elias Romero Chung, DO, MBA
Rush Esperanza Family Medicine Residency Program, Chicago

This year’s Resident Teacher of the Year started early and volunteered to present didactic topics in his second year of residency which included teaching both residents and nurse practitioner fellows. He won the STFM Faculty for Tomorrow scholarship and attended the 2024 STFM Annual Spring Conference. He is also dedicated to maintaining his skills as an osteopathic family physician in a program that does not currently have an established osteopathic curriculum. So, he created the curriculum for himself, which can be used for future osteopathic school graduates in their residency training.

According to his colleague Dr. Anna Nguyen, he has even convinced some medical students to choose family medicine after rotating with him! That is the ultimate compliment to a resident teacher.

Family Medicine Teacher of the Year
Johnny Tenegra, MD, FAAFP – SIU Decatur Family Medicine Residency

Dr. Johnny Tenegra began his family medicine career as a resident at the SIU Decatur Family Medicine Residency Program in July 2012 and upon graduation in 2015 became part of the faculty. He infused new energy into the program that continues today. Specifically, Dr. Tenegra has been an integral part of their recruiting process. He has eagerly taken on, organized and implemented a recruiting team for AAFP National Conference and Family Medicine Midwest.

Dr. Tenegra has a passion for Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS). He teaches the residents and faculty point of care ultrasound techniques at the Department of Family Medicine level for all SIU Family Medicine Programs. He has also presented nationally and at a state level his involvement with the POCUS group. He's also the Director of Faculty Development for both the SIU-Decatur Residency Program and the Department of Family and Community Medicine. At the national level he is Chair of the STFM, the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, Emerging Leaders Fellowship.

Dr. Tenegra was nominated by Dr. Janet Albers, Chair of SIU Dept. of Family and Community Medicine. His wife Dr. Nicole Tenegra is also a family physician at SIU and they have three children, Isabella, Dominc and Joseph. As if that doesn’t require enough energy, Tenegra is also an accomplished distance athlete, competing in triathlons and half marathons. In fact, he ran a half marathon in Indianapolis the same morning and then traveled to Naperville to accept the award in the afternoon.

He put out a call to action, “We need to continue to invest in our faculty and invest in their development to be great teachers. Our residency faculty physicians are ambassadors toward our specialty, representing family medicine to residents and medical students.  We need to continue to showcase why family physicians are the future of medicine, utilizing innovations to take care of our patients, such as point-of-care ultrasound and artificial intelligence. I implore all of you to spend more time with our learners, medical students, residents, or even new faculty to share your experiences and lessons.  Your mentoring and coaching may influence others to become our next generation of family physicians.”