AAFP installs new leadership

Dr. Reid Blackwelder, Kingsport, Tenn., was installed as president of the American Academy of Family Physicians on Wednesday during the group's Congress of Delegates meeting in San Diego. Dr. Robert Wergin, Milford, Neb., was chosen as president-elect. Completing the leadership rotation, the immediate past president, Jeffrey Cain of Denver, is now chairman of the board.

Blackwelder is the director of the family medicine department's medical student education division at East Tennessee State University's James H. Quillen College of Medicine in Johnson City. He is also affiliated with the Wellmont Holston Valley Medical Center in Kingsport. He was the AAFP's Exemplary Teacher of the Year in 2008, according to a news release.

Wergin maintains a private practice in Milford and is the medical director for Sunrise Country Manor nursing home and Crestview Care Center skilled-nursing home, both in Milford. He is the former president of the Nebraska Academy of Family Physicians and helped get legislation passed in Nebraska establishing the state's Medicaid medical home pilot project, according to a news release.

Cain is chief of family medicine at Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora, and is an associate professor in University of Colorado Health Sciences Center's department of family medicine. He was also instrumental in getting legislation passed in Colorado that defined medical homes.

The 110,600-member AAFP is based in Leawood, Kansas.

Follow Andis Robeznieks on Twitter: @MHARobeznieks