University at Buffalo (UB)
Gabriela K. Popescu, PhD, encourages input from UB faculty as she serves on the administrative board of the AAMC’s Council of Faculty and Academic Societies.
3 UB Faculty Leaders Help Shape Academic Medicine Nationally
Published December 2, 2013 This content is archived.
Story by Suzanne Kashuba
The University at Buffalo has a strong presence in the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), with three faculty members serving in leadership roles as key players helping to shape academic medicine at the national level.
Working to Address Critical Issues
Gabriela K. Popescu, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry; John M. Canty Jr., MD, Albert and Elizabeth Rekate Professor of medicine and chief of cardiovascular medicine; and Anne B. Curtis, MD, UB Distinguished Professor and Charles and Mary Bauer Professor and chair of medicine, all serve on the newly reorganized, 300-plus member Council of Faculty and Academic Societies.
The council works to identify and collectively address critical issues facing its members, who represent medical school faculty and academic societies.
Popescu is one of 15 members elected to the administrative board that leads the council’s activities. She began her first three-year term in fall 2013.
Canty is the senior representative of UB’s medical school; Curtis represents the Association of Professors of Medicine.
The council’s reorganization adds faculty representation — including early- and mid-career faculty leaders like Popescu — helping to ensure that diverse faculty have input into AAMC activities and policies.
A Voice for UB Faculty Members
These national representatives provide a voice for all faculty, serving as liaisons with colleagues at their home institutions.
Popescu encourages feedback and input from her UB peers.
“This is an opportunity for UB faculty to voice their concerns and share their ideas in a national forum,” she says. “If we talk with one voice, we can come up with ways to have some impact.”
“The goal is to empower faculty to more effectively deal with priority issues,” she says. “You have a voice,” she tells her colleagues.
Faculty Input into the Future
“As educators, clinicians and researchers, [faculty] are on the front lines, training tomorrow’s physicians and scientists, conducting lifesaving research and caring for our nation’s most vulnerable patients,” says AAMC President Darrell G. Kirch, MD.
“There are myriad issues under discussion at the AAMC and on the national stage that will benefit from a stronger faculty voice.”
The organization takes a system-wide approach to problem-solving, helping medical faculty deal with shared challenges such as diminishing resources for research and teaching, health care reform and workforce shortages.
Toward this end, the association provides various types of support, including research data, advocacy and educational opportunities.