M. Shoaib Afridi, MD
Internal Medicine, St. Michael’s Medical Center, Newark, NJ
For the past several years at St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark, CIR has fought for and won the wage increases which have brought our members’ salaries back up to the New Jersey mean. Furthermore, residents have secured benefits, food and coffee allowances, and other standard resources that are now available at our workplace.
Besides our working conditions and quality of life as residents, we are making strides to change fundamental aspects of how our hospitals provide the care we deliver. Now, the organization is looking to expand quality improvement projects for every hospital in this area. By giving residents an important voice in the hospital’s administrative direction, I have seen CIR emerge as a vehicle of change for patient care and resident working conditions, as well—issues that are sometimes too difficult to tackle alone as busy residents in a large programs.
As Regional Vice President, I hope to continue valuable work helping NJ residents and interns keep their contracts and conditions through the UMDNJ restructuring period. In my past year at CIR, I have come to value political advocacy on a national, state and local level and hope to bring the issues to regular CIR members. My goal in the upcoming year is to help connect CIR members to the issues, and make their voices heard through a mobile application for their smartphones and increase our engagement with members, hopefully impacting national election issues, like the Affordable Care Act.
