Call for Editor

QI Editorial

Call For Editor

Q IEditorial

Hello friends,

As you may recall from our last edition, we bid farewell to Dr. Thomas Gettelfinger as Editor of this magazine. Dr. Gettelfinger (aka Tom or Dr. G) has been the consistent voice of our flagship publication for twenty years. He worked with two CEOs of the Society, numerous staff editors, and a couple of generations of physicians in his career as Editor.

I want to take a few sentences and give my personal thanks to Dr. G. He was one of the first physicians to inspire me in this role five years ago. He did it twice within my first year.

The first was when I was barely into my tenure at the medical society. Combing through his articles and just being generally astonished at the dedication of anyone to a volunteer role was inspiring to me as a new CEO. It gave me hope that we could package the collective talent and resources of our physician community to make Memphis a better place to live and practice medicine (project ongoing).

The second occasion of inspiration came primarily from his advocating voice for the lowering of prescription drug prices. Dr. G was on this mission way before it was the cool thing to do in healthcare advocacy. A couple of phone calls and emails, along with some meetings with our federal delegation, and I was mesmerized. It culminated at a meeting of healthcare law attorneys at University of Memphis a few years ago. All of these attorneys and me in the room. Then came a time for commentary and off he went. One of the few physicians in the room educating attorneys on the importance of lowering prescription drug prices. Much progress has been made, but we obviously are not finished.

I’ll leave my goodbye in a simple one-liner, ala Dr. G – Thank you, sir. You’re the best. And now we turn the chapter and call on our membership to recruit a new Editor. Send me an email at ccummins@mdmemphis.org and let me know if you are interested in serving, or feel free to recommend someone whose voice you would love to hear in our publication. We consistently hear that our editorial page is the number one reason people read our publication. We will put out a call via email to the membership as well. And don’t worry…we don’t expect you to top Dr. G. That’s impossible!

Clint Cummins, MHA, CEO