CIR Members Elect a New Executive Committee

First-ever Mail-in Ballot Elections Used for Two Regional Vice President Races

From left to right:  Dr. John Ingle, Secretary-Treasurer; Dr. Hillary Tompkins, Executive Vice President; Dr. Farbod Raiszadeh, President.

This spring, the membership of the CIR elected new resident physician officers to its Executive Committee, the governing body that guides the operations of the union between annual conventions. Each of the national offices -- President, Executive Vice President, and Secretary-Treasurer -- changed hands, as did all but two of the eleven Regional Vice President positions. As always, CIR lived up to its motto of being governed by residents for residents by electing a cross-section of its membership, showing diversity in specialty, geography, country of origin, and even political party.

 

CIR is unusual among labor unions in the frequency with which its leadership changes hands. Whereas most unions elect its leaders for a multi-year term, housestaff are only members of the union for the three to seven years of their residency, necessitating a new convention and new election for officers every year. For the year 2010-2011, only one candidate was running for twelve of the fourteen positions. As a result, Dr. Janet Freedman, the chair of the Election Board, not to mention a former CIR President and Executive Director, cast a single vote for that slate of candidates at the convention on May 23, 2010. The other two candidates -- Regional Vice President for New Mexico and for Northern California -- had more than one candidate running, necessitating a mail-in ballot election by members within that region, the first such mail-in election since the CIR Constitution was amended during the 2008 national convention to allow for direct election of officers by the membership. The results of that election were certified by the Election Board on June 21, 2010

Here, in their own words, are the members of the CIR Executive Committee for 2010-2011:

Find out who's on your national leadership team and what they envision doing to build the organization by reading through their candidate statements.

NATIONAL PRESIDENT

Farbod Raiszadeh, MD, PhD

PGY 4
Cardiology Fellow
Montefiore Medical Center
Bronx, NY

I have been honored to serve my fellow CIR physicians as a member of the Executive Committee for two years, both as Secretary-Treasurer and Regional Vice President for New York. These experiences helped me understand how CIR helps develop resident physicians into leaders, and convinced me that I wanted to help CIR be the best organization it could be by running as National President.

    By sitting in on multiple labor management meetings, I have seen how having a union can change the tone of a residency program. Instead of the usual doom and gloom, and the resigned attitude that is pervasive in residency training, residents become active problem solvers in CIR hospitals.  I have also seen how giving a voice to residents, as frontline providers of care, allows a partnership to form between residents and the administration when it comes to improving the quality of patient care.

    I am currently a cardiology fellow at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, and I will continue that fellowship throughout the next year.  As president, I want to help CIR develop the physician leaders of tomorrow, to expand the sphere of influence of CIR, and to develop new partnerships with organizations and groups that share the values and objectives of CIR.

    We face many challenges, but this is the time to organize new hospitals and show how having CIR can transform the training experience into something unique. The financial situation in many states is dire, and it is seriously jeopardizing the health and strength of our hospitals, meaning we must fight harder to keep what we have.  Our challenges are great, but so are our opportunities.

 
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

Hillary Tompkins, MD

PGY 6
Gastroenterology Fellow
Boston Medical Center
Boston, MA

I believe that it is important for the future of medicine and for the quality of care for our patients that resident and fellow voices be heard.  Being members of CIR allows us to be heard and to truly make a difference in our hospitals and beyond.

    As a medical student at Boston University, I found the importance of CIR to be obvious and wanted to be in a CIR hospital for my residency training.  As a student, I saw that CIR allowed residents to voice their concerns about work conditions and patient care, but I didn’t appreciate how much CIR could transform the experience of residency until I became a resident myself, and now a gastroenterology fellow, at Boston Medical Center.

    There’s no doubt that having CIR at my hospital has made a difference. I have seen the implementation of 24-hour phlebotomy and IV services, after-hours taxi vouchers, and serious consideration of resident work hours.  I have even lobbied at the State House to support the passage of legislation to limit resident work hours in Massachusetts.

    I previously served on the Executive Committee as Regional Vice President for Massachusetts.  I have seen how CIR can make a difference in both residents’ and our patients’ lives.  I would like to be involved in organizing more hospitals and continuing to make CIR become a more recognized organization.  Through CIR, I look forward to continuing to work for improved access to care, for work hours reform, and for expanding our membership.


SECRETARY-TREASURER

John Ingle, MD

PGY 4
Otolaryngology
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
Albuquerque, NM

I have been involved with CIR since the beginning of my otolaryngology residency at the University of New Mexico. I have participated in contract and salary negotiations for the last four years, working with other CIR leaders to raise salaries from the bottom of the pay scale in the Western Region to near the 50th percentile.

    CIR has been a powerful tool in New Mexico. We have taken the opportunity to speak up when something is not right. We identified disparities and social issues in the care of our patients. We connected with local and state politicians; our leaders routinely attended and represented the doctor's voice at health care reform events.

    In our first CIR contract, we made grand changes to benefits and salaries. We also established a patient care fund that has brought many innovations for patients at our hospital. I don’t think anyone in the administration would have thought of those ideas, let alone implemented them without our involvement. Administration now turns to us for input on many important patient care issues.

    I attended college at the University of Texas at El Paso (Biological Sciences), and medical school at the Boston University School of Medicine, where I focused my studies on heath disparities and minority health issues. I was the AMSA chapter vice president at Boston University School of Medicine. I came to believe in CIR after observing its impact on improving ancillary services at Boston Medical Center. Now I am a part of that same force of change both here in New Mexico and nationally on the CIR Executive Committee, where I served as Regional Vice President for New Mexico last year.


REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
FLORIDA


Kelly Liker, MD

PGY 3
Pediatrics
Jackson Memorial Hospital
Miami, FL

CIR has taught me to value that which our predecessors have fought to obtain.  CIR is a powerful and well-structured organization that is capable of accomplishing so much, and our successes thus far are a testament to that.  CIR is also a community of people who share similar beliefs and work together to maintain the spirit of our profession while managing the struggles it can present.   I am proud to be a member of an organization that has built bridges to join young physicians all over the country and create a unified voice in the tradition that is CIR.

    I am a PGY 3 in Pediatrics at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where I will continue next year as Chief Resident.

    CIR has made a profound impact on me with respect to how I view my field and its future.  Whether through lobbying efforts in healthcare reform, collective bargaining sessions, anti-smoking campaigns, resident appreciation days, or numerous other events, CIR has consistently demonstrated its commitment to the multitude of issues concerning healthcare professionals.     

   Last year was my first opportunity to lobby in Washington as part of CIR, and I am committed to recruiting more physicians in this effort in the coming year.  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed political activism and the potential we have to truly influence how decisions are made in Washington.  It is both a privilege and an obligation to educate our government and to actively support that which we believe will improve the future of medicine.  It is my hope that by sharing my experiences with other residents and fellows, I will inspire others to join in the activism.

REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Nick Nelson, MD

PGY2
Internal Medicine
Highland General Hospital
Oakland, CA

Through my involvement with CIR, I’ve come to appreciate our potential to make meaningful change on both a local, discrete and a more general level.

    Locally, CIR has enabled us at Highland to get pretty much everything we want in contract negotiations, and shown the capacity to meet new needs as they arise.  But it’s not enough that CIR works for us; housestaff at other Northern California hospitals should enjoy the same collective bargaining power that we do at Alameda County Medical Center.  I would like to help with CIR’s efforts to educate non-unionized residents about the possibility and benefits of organization and help them achieve it.

    More generally, I think at their best unions have the power not just to allow people to negotiate better working conditions, but to embark from a position of strength on larger projects of self-realization.  CIR constitutes a community of advocates for better patient care and more just distribution of healthcare resources.  I have seen what this can mean during our (successful) efforts towards the passage of a national health reform bill and in CIR/SEIU’s recent mobilization of healthcare professionals to work in Haiti.

    In the year to come, I would like to see CIR participate in an effort to move forward more progressive healthcare reform in California than that which was achieved at the federal level, and to assist further efforts to help CIR doctors participate in medical missions to underserved and/or disaster areas, both at home and abroad.

REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Michael Core, MD

PGY 2
Family Medicine
Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
Los Angeles, CA

    I am proud to serve as the current Regional Vice President for Southern California.

    I think the most powerful lesson I’ve learned is how CIR can be used as an instrument of change.

    As I experienced at my own hospital this year, residents can help avert negative developments by being involved.  When my hospital proposed two capital projects that would have eliminated over 600 parking spots, it was clear there were multiple layers of administration that had not thought out how best to lessen the impact.  Luckily, we had CIR to propose alternatives, ensuring the voices of all impacted parties were heard so that the best decisions were made. Without CIR, there would have been no resident physician representation on the parking committee, no one to research solutions to mediate the lack of parking, or the ultimate adoption of our researched alternatives by hospital administration.

    I would love to help CIR improve by growing into new regions and hospitals.  The more I talk to my classmates from medical school, the more they want to learn about what CIR is and how it can help make their hospitals better for residents, staff and patients.  I believe that the future of CIR lies in its ability to organize new members and improve working conditions at these new hospitals, which will spur more interest in CIR by residents looking to be empowered. I enjoy meeting residents and getting them as excited as I am about CIR and the changes they can make to improve their hospitals; I hope to continue such activity this coming year.

REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
NEW JERSEY

Tony R. Tarchichi, MD

PGY 3
Internal Medicine-Pediatrics
UMDNJ-University Hospital
Newark, NJ

    As a CIR member, I’ve learned that working together, residents have stronger power than they realize and can fight for things that we need. I’ve also learned that political power is very important in order get things done. CIR enabled me to make a speech before my Congressman this year during the health care reform debate.  That gave me his ear to discuss things like tort reform, the direction of the health care reform bill, and other health care issues that an ordinary physician normally does not get the ability to discuss one-on-one with a member of Congress.  One person can have an impact.

    I am an internal medicine-pediatrics resident at UMDNJ, and will continue rotations at UMDNJ-University Hospital and the VA Hospital in East Orange, NJ throughout the next year.

    I’ve found that if you stand up and tell residents at rounds or noon conference or wherever about what CIR is doing, they respond. The residents in New Jersey have come to see CIR as a helpful organization that’s really on our side. Throughout contract negotiations, I’ve gotten a big response from residents when they were asked to step up, whether by wearing a button or faxing a form to an administrator. We also responded when CIR got involved in the health care reform debate.  More openness and communication will lead to even more enthusiasm.

    I would also like to meet more closely with our local elected leaders and offer them our support as physicians on health care issues.  CIR helped turn this average Med-Peds resident into a physician advisor for a congressman— imagine what CIR could do if we all got involved.


REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
MASSACHUSETTS

Jay Bhatt, DO, MPH

PGY 2
Internal Medicine
Cambridge Health
Alliance
Cambridge, MA

CIR has allowed me to learn a number of important skills, including how to lead a team, negotiate contracts, manage information, and activate members. In addition, CIR has helped me learn more effective ways to organize and engage in advocacy. I am able to better grasp issues around health care reform, immigrant health, and work hours as a result of the workshops and policy sessions. I also learned about the importance of unions in the political process, in healthcare, and in collective bargaining.  As a former National President of AMSA, a board member for Doctors for America, and a National Health Service Corps Scholar, I’m ready to bring my passion for activism to CIR.

    I’m a PGY 2 in Internal Medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance and will be at CHA throughout the next year.

    As Regional Vice President, I would hope to bring the lessons from our recent bargaining session, in which we were able to secure a successful contract for our housestaff, to CIR nationwide. I hope to work with staff to create tools to assist residents around the country in the bargaining process, including “best practices.”

    I would also like to see CIR develop more robust organizing trainings for its leadership so that we can better recruit and engage our members in bargaining, policy, and political action through the year. These leadership skills are also helpful to residents in their future careers and as they manage ward teams. Perhaps early in the year, CIR could lead a session for junior and senior residents about workflow, management, communication, and teams to improve patient care.


REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
NEW MEXICO

Alisha Parada, MD

PGY2
Internal Medicine
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
Albuquerque, NM

When CIR initially made its presentation at my intern orientation, I did not sign up to be a member. But I did start attending meetings with a friend who was a member, and it became apparent that this organization not only listened but brought about change. I was able to appreciate the major advances that CIR has made for resident life and patient care. Since that time, I have been extremely active and feel that we can make a difference for all.
   Through CIR, I have learned to be a better leader and overall a better physician.  I will be Chief Resident of Internal Medicine after this year, and the skills that I have learned from being in CIR will help me during my chief resident year.  

   This year, I was the lead negotiator for the contract negotiating team, as we successfully negotiated salary increases with the administration. I was also an active member in the contract negotiations last year in which we won incredible benefits (salary increases, Step 3 reimbursement), and I intend to be active in negotiating the contract next year, even though it will not directly benefit me.

   I will continue to help organize my fellow residents to resolve issues at our hospital such as parking safety, meal money issues, and general labor management issues. I co-chaired many committees which have dealt with these issues head-on. As a result, we have seen resolution of many issues that have been frustrating us for years. I am very good at communicating with residents, identifying issues and taking action. I fully intend to continue to do this over the next year.

REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
NEW YORK

Sepideh Sedgh, DO

PGY 2
Internal Medicine
Maimonides Medical Center,
Brooklyn, NY

    Through my time at CIR, I have learned that my voice and opinion matter, and that I can make a difference in my residency program now and for future residents.  I have also learned of the significant impact that I can have in changing the quality of care for our patients.  CIR played an integral role in the health care reform debate this year, and I am proud to say that I too played a role creating such positive change.

    Next year, I will be a PGY 3 in Internal Medicine at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn.

    I am already a leader in my hospital as a delegate and as one of the class representatives to the Executive Committee for Internal Medicine at my hospital.  As a result, I am one of the main voices for our internal medicine program.  I have become more active in CIR, especially during my second year.  I plan on coordinating more lectures in our hospital to update residents and others on health care reform and what we can do to provide higher quality care to our patients.

    As one of the Regional Vice Presidents for New York, I would like to make more residents and hospitals aware of CIR and what we stand for, as well as what we can accomplish if everyone became an active participant.  I would also like to help organize more rallies and actions to call attention to resident rights and patients’ rights.  People who are not in the healthcare field should know what we go through and what our patients are struggling with in our healthcare system.


REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
NEW YORK

Bijay Archaya, MD

PGY 2
Internal Medicine
Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center
Bronx, NY

    Each of our hospitals has residents from many different countries, backgrounds and cultures. CIR plays an important role in bringing them together and strengthening them.  My involvement with CIR has added to my advocacy skills and my passion for just health care wherever I practice.

    I attended B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences in Nepal, where I completed five and a half years of medical school.  I will be a PGY 3 in Internal Medicine at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital next year.  At Bronx-Lebanon, I have already served as a resident representative to the Graduate Medical Education Committee and the Medical Boards Committee.  I have also witnessed firsthand CIR’s ability bring International Medical Graduates and American Medical Graduates together to work on common goals to improve the quality of patient care at our hospitals.

    When not at my hospital or organizing for CIR, I sit on the Board of Directors of Nyaya Health, a unique and innovative non-profit public health organization which is a collaboration between Nepali and United States public health experts to provide services to the Achham region of Nepal.

    Over the past year, I proved myself valuable in organizing and in political action. I helped prompt large numbers of residents to call their senators and representatives for health care reform. I would like to work to improve the relationship between residents from different hospitals in New York, and across the country, as well as to help better integrate the work of IMGs in CIR.


REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
NEW YORK

Gregory Dodell, MD

PGY 3
Internal Medicine
St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Medical Center
New York, NY

    CIR has enabled me to find myself as a physician leader and has instilled a passion in me for global issues. I have learned the power and importance of a unified physician voice to improve the health care system for us as physicians and for our patients. Additionally, I am always impressed to meet all the incredible physician members and support staff of CIR. It is evidence of the passion and strength that exists in this world.

    I am currently a PGY 3 in Internal Medicine at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Medical Center in Manhattan, and I will be pursuing an endocrinology, metabolism and nutrition fellowship at SLR next year.  I am currently one of the Regional Vice Presidents for New York and would be honored to serve in that capacity for another year.

    We must continue to grow as an organization, since there is strength in numbers. I have begun to speak with graduating residents who are going to other hospitals for fellowship where there is no CIR presence about how we might initiate the process of organizing those hospitals.

    I am excited to continue to voice our opinion as physicians so that we can make this new health care law the best it can be through its implementation.  I am excited about additional possibilities for patient advocacy that will arise throughout the year.  I have a tremendous passion for nutrition and would love to see CIR become involved in fighting the obesity epidemic in our hospitals and cities.


REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
NEW YORK

Thaddeus K. Lynn, MD

PGY 2
Family Medicine
Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center
Bronx, NY

My impression of CIR is that it is like a great and powerful lens which brings uncertain changes during uncertain times into clearer focus.  It is an organization that empowers the heath care professional to organize and mobilize others as well-informed patient advocates.  This organization engages others at the grassroots level to have a strong collective voice and, with it, greater power and influence.

    I am presently a PGY 2 in Family Medicine at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital.  Next year, I plan to finish my family medicine training and seek further training in pain management.

    I have learned by being a member of CIR.  I have been enriched by the experience of effective teamwork that leads to goal achievement.  It has been an exciting experience to have an impact on the health care policies of this beloved country.  As a physician, I have learned that our professional opinion regarding health care reform is extremely valuable in the ever-changing field of health care.  It is through CIR that I have learned effective communication to champion affordable and quality health care, but also to let those in a position of power know how their decisions affect my patients and my peers.

    CIR considers its “three pillars” to be collective bargaining, organizing, and patient advocacy through political action.  I intend to help the organization grow in these categories by continuing to speak out on behalf of those patients in need of a voice in society.  Overall, my goal is to influence those who are charged to shape the health care of this country.


REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
NEW YORK

Ian Wittman, MD

PGY 2
Emergency Medicine
Bellevue Hospital Center
New York, NY

    I have been the beneficiary of CIR fighting for residents’ rights and better working conditions, and working through the political system to help improve our hospitals and our patients’ lives.  Through my work with CIR, I’ve learned how to act as an intermediary between the residents and the union as well as between the union and the hospital administration, not to mention government at the city, state, and national levels. Now I want to help CIR take its efforts to the next level as one of the Regional Vice Presidents for New York.

    Next year, I will be a PGY 3 in Emergency Medicine at Bellevue Hospital Center.

    I’d like to help CIR improve its ability to add new hospitals and residency programs and to receive more funding from the city/state/federal government to support the vital jobs we do as physicians.  Organizing and advocacy are my strengths and interests. The union already has plans in the works to add new chapters to CIR, and I will lend my time and energy to trying to bring these new members on board. While I have already done work in patient advocacy over the past year by attending meetings and speaking directly with state and federal lawmakers, I would step up my efforts as a Vice President to try to make sure all of our physician and patient voices are heard in the political process.

    Unfortunately, our patients’ needs are too often ignored. Physicians and leaders need to work together to make sure that all of our perspectives are recognized and equally represented.