The Ohio Academy of Family Physicians has nominated Elisabeth L. Righter, MD, for appointment to the American Academy of Family Physicians Commission on Education, the AAFP Commission on Health of the Public and Science, or the AAFP Commission on Membership and Member Services. Dr. Righter’s professional experience, 23 years working in academic medicine starting as a community preceptor and then joining the residency faculty at three different residencies in two states, make her uniquely qualified to serve in this capacity.
Dr. Righter currently serves as associate professor at the Wright State University’s (WSU) Boonshoft School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine, Dayton, OH. She also serves as associate director of the WSU Family Medicine Residency. The residency is a university-affiliated program housed at an inner-city Federally Qualified Community Health Center. Her special areas of expertise are quality improvement and patient-centered medical home practice transformation. She is now participating in the Professionals Accelerating Clinical and Educational Redesign (PACER), a faculty development program that emphasizes inter-professional training and practice. Dr. Righter is also involved with the primary care practice transformation that will occur as part of a $5 million Health Resources and Services Administation’s Residency Training grant that the Department of Family Medicine at Boonshoft was recently awarded.
Dr. Righter has extensive national and state chapter leadership experience. In Ohio, she has been actively involved in committee and board service, including service as OAFP president in 2005-06 and as alternate delegate to the AAFP Congress in 2002-03. She is currently a member of the OAFP Board of Directors and serves as alternate delegate to the AAFP Congress (term commencing 2015 through 2018). Dr. Righter was named OAFP Foundation Philanthropist of the Year in 2008. While living and working in Wisconsin, Dr. Righter served on the Wisconsin Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors (2008-11).
Nationally, Dr. Righter served a five-year term on the AAFP Commission on Quality and Practice; the fifth year she chaired the commission. She served on the commission’s executive committee, represented the AAFP on the Conference on Practice Improvement Steering Committee (in 2013 as chair), helped revise the AAFP’s radiology position paper in 2012, and assisted with development of the AAFP’s new policy regarding physician burnout. She was involved as both a resident at the National Congress of Family Medicine Residents, and as a woman physician within the old AAFP National Conference of Women, Minority, and New Physicians (she served as co-convener and as women physician delegate to the AAFP Congress).
In his letter of chapter support, OAFP president Ryan Kauffman, MD, stated, “Dr. Righter is a hard-working, organized, well-prepared leader who has a wealth of knowledge and experience that make her supremely well-suited to serve on any one of these three commissions.”
Good luck, Dr. Righter!