President’s Message

Dear Colleagues,

Hope you are settling well into 2025! It will be Spring when you read this message. A time full of fresh life and new beginnings.

We are sorry about the unexpected cancellation of the Annual Oration in February, but are pleased to report the new date is June 10 at Mechanics Hall. However, our remaining agenda at WDMS was still jam-packed with exciting events in the early part of the year with the Annual Business Meeting (ABM) in April, followed by the excitement of the in-person Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) in May (with the many associated committee and caucus meetings). It was good to see so many of our Delegates on May 17th, bright and early Saturday morning, at the final session of the HOD.

I hope you enjoyed our Annual Business Meeting on April 15th. It was held at the conveniently located Beechwood Hotel. In addition to formalizing your officers and chairpersons of various committees for 2025-2026, we also presented the Community Clinician of the Year Award. The evening was rounded off with a wonderful talk from guest speaker, Dr. Stephen Ko, who I can guarantee will touch our hearts and lift our spirits as we continue caring for our patients in an everevolving and challenging environment. This will continue the theme of our presentations and speak to the heart of our calling as physicians.

Along these lines, I would like to take this opportunity to increase awareness of many community organizations: local, national, and international looking for medics to serve sick people without having to think of office schedules, insurance coverage, Epic documentation, RVUs, and productivity reports. I truly believe that volunteering our time and energy is a way we can combat burnout and other negative feelings we experience in our practices. An entire issue of Worcester Medicine ( Volume 92, Number 3, Fall 2023 ) was previously devoted to this theme. Look back to that issue for inspiration and feel free to contact me any time so I can put you in touch with our Worcester physician colleagues already volunteering at local organizations like the free clinics at St. Anne’s and St. Peter’s (part of the Worcester Free Care Collaborative), Clearway Clinic (a Crisis Pregnancy Center), Visitation House (a temporary home/shelter alternative to abortion for mothers with unplanned pregnancies), UMass Memorial Health’s Ronald McDonald Care Mobile (for Worcester children and their families), Indian Society of Worcester Health Stop, as well as international medical missions conducted by organizations like Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA; different countries), Optum, One World Surgery (Dominican Republic), Agape Global Health (Haiti), CRCA (Liberia), Cape CARES (Honduras), and Asaprosar (El Salvador). This is not a comprehensive list but could be a starting point for your curiosity and enthusiasm.

In this edition of Worcester Medicine , I would like to give a special shoutout to our Secretary Dr. Justin Maykel. Despite his busy schedule as Chief of the Division of Colorectal Surgery at UMass, he has demonstrated great commitment to our Society activities, even registering his department colleagues as new WDMS members. He is a Worcester son-of-the-soil and we have used his connections to establish relationships with local businesses willing to support the mission of WDMS. Thank you, my dear friend, it’s been truly awesome working with you.

Let me end by wishing you a great year ahead. Please email me with your thoughts and feedback on our meetings, journal, or any other topics. It will be great to hear from you.

Sincerely,

Alwyn Rapose, MD, FACP alwyn.rapose@reliantmedicalgroup.org