A Newsletter From Your USPATH President Dr. Maddie Deutsch - Reminder to Apply for USPATH Board Member-at-Large
From:
"WPATH" <wpath@PROTECTED>
Subject:
A Newsletter From Your USPATH President Dr. Maddie Deutsch - Reminder to Apply for USPATH Board Member-at-Large
Date:
January 21st 2022
January 21, 2022
Dear USPATH Colleagues,
As I write this in the first month of 2022, I am thinking about the intersection between possibility and uncertainty. At a societal level, we’re in yet the next round of covid whiplash, as the omicron variant runs wild in our communities and schools; also as I write this, my daughter is back in school with fingers crossed after two separate five-day quarantine closures in the past 3 weeks. The fabric of our nation appears to be stretched to the limit, with divisions among us against a background of structural racism, wealth inequality, and general disunity. Within our own profession, we face many challenges from access to care to issues of equity and racism in health care, to pressing scientific matters now under debate.
And yet at the same time I think of the possibilities for what lies ahead. As the old proverb says, “An idle mind is the devil’s playground”. And so from our Zoom offices, our ad-hoc home schools and daycares, and our well ventilated and masked in-person clinics, we soldier on. I’m humbled to have been entrusted by all of you to lead USPATH during this time of growth and change. USPATH has grown in these past few years through infancy and childhood into what I now see as our adolescence. And like adolescence, we are at a time of finding our identity, setting goals, moving through changes, and learning and growing. Below I will describe a number of exciting initiatives and efforts which are getting underway.
USPATH President-Elect Carl Streed, Jr. will be chairing a newly formed Bylaws Taskforce, assisted by USPATH Board Members Caroline Davidge-Pitts and Lisa Griffin, to review our current Bylaws, conduct a needs assessment for areas not covered in our current version, report on the Bylaw structures for peer organizations, and then present these findings to the full USPATH Board for review. Once a final set of revised Bylaws have been reviewed and approved by the full Board, they will be sent to the entire membership for review and voting.
USPATH Board Member Zil Goldstein will be leading an effort to develop a learner mentorship program with a focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism. We now have committee chairs for the Research and Education Committees and the Elder Subcommittee of the Clinical Care Committee in place; each Chair will begin staffing their committees from the general USPATH membership, and work with the USPATH Board to ensure alignment with the organization’s mission and vision. We are now also in the process of creating a taskforce to explore quality assurance and improvement in the arena of TGD youth, and another to explore key considerations in the approach to individuals with a history of gender transition who now seek reversal of some or all of these interventions; I will serve as the administrative Chair for both of these task forces, which will be comprised of leading experts in the field.
We are undergoing some restructuring of the USPATH Board of Directors. We thank Dr. Erica Anderson for her work with the organization; Dr. Anderson has chosen to step down from the Past-President role to focus on other pursuits, and we wish her the best. We have also taken a closer look at the Secretary/Treasurer role, and will be restructuring that position as part of the upcoming Bylaws revision. At present, please be on the lookout for two at-large Board Member positions, for which elections will soon be held.
As you may already know, prior to these elections, we will be following the lead of WPATH and convening a USPATH Election Nominating Committee which will assist the Board in evaluating nominations for Board positions. These 3 advisors will be elected by the USPATH membership, as part of our efforts to keep USPATH elections transparent and open, while still ensuring that those who do run are well qualified to do so.
The call for candidates for this USPATH Election Nominating Committee has been reopened until January 31, 2022 at 11:59pm ET, and we strongly encourage people from all specialties with a USPATH membership for at least 3 years (paid dues in 2019, 2020, 2021 and renewed for 2022) to run for these critical roles. Click here to apply. I served as a member of the WPATH Nominating Committee in the most recent WPATH election cycle, and found it to be a satisfying and rewarding process, as well as a way to become more involved with and understand the leadership structure of the organization. SInce we are still seeking applicants for the Nominating Committee, we have also decided to extend the deadline for USPATH Board Member-at-Large positions until January 31, 2022 at 11:59pm ET.
With the exception of our hard-working colleagues at Veritas who run the day-to-day operations of USPATH, we are an entirely volunteer organization. The USPATH Board is a governance body; we do not possess an exhaustive body of expertise to drive the scientific aspects of this organization. During USPATH conferences and meetings, and in forum discussions, many of you have great ideas and suggestions. I want to encourage each of you to consider joining a committee, running for a position, responding to a call for applications, or bringing your new or innovative idea to the Board for review. We can’t do it without you, and we welcome your involvement!
In conclusion, I am grateful for the trust you’ve placed in me to lead our organization for these next two years. I hope to serve with humility, and with a grounding in principles of anti-racism and anti-exclusion. I’m enthusiastic for what is ahead, and ready to roll up my sleeves, I hope you’ll roll yours up with me.
Warmly,
Maddie
Warmly,
Maddie
Maddie Deutsch, MD, MPH
Medical Director, UCSF Gender Affirming Health Program
Associate Professor of Clinical Family & Community Medicine
University of California - San Francisco
President, US Professional Association for Transgender Health (USPATH)
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