Dear NCMS members,

First of all, I need to start out by saying thank you. In a very unpredictable year of COVID-19 with hardships that have affected many of our physician members differently, I am pleased to report our membership remains stronger than ever with the highest membership retention rate as a component society in the state. Thank YOU for believing in our work and making our mission possible.

With a new season upon us, NCMS is strategically focusing on our membership value, allowing us to “spring” forward on projects we have been looking forward to this year. You’ll see some more detail in our strategic planning report, but here are a few highlights I have been extremely excited about over the past several months.

NCMS 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting: I thoroughly enjoyed seeing many of our members come together around an untraditional, virtual dinner table, as we enjoyed food from the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant in the comfort of our homes and offices, and talked about the year NCMS had and what we are working towards as an organization in 2021. I am pleased to report that many of the initiatives we announced at the Annual Meeting are underway and beginning to “bloom” this spring season.

STEM Pipeline: As you know, NCMS is strategically committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, and this is beginning to truly operationalize in our STEM Pipeline initiative. We are very excited to be hosting a two-part series video story with Fort Collins Family Medicine, allowing students from any and all backgrounds to see that if they have the desire to go into medicine, especially becoming a physician, they can do it! Do you have ideas on how we can best tell the story in this video series? We want to hear them. Email me at paige@nocomedsoc.org.

NCMS Virtual Education Series: We are finally underway with one of our biggest member programming strategies I have been truly excited to launch, our education series. It was fun to see members come together to join Dr. Doris Gundersen for an enlightening conversation on THC and vaping. If you didn’t have a chance to attend, you can view the recording of the event here! I look forward to seeing our community of physicians come together again on April 15 from 12-1 p.m. via Zoom MST to learn more about The Health of LGBTQ Persons from speaker Dr. Carl Streed. During this event we will also be joined by Gov. Jared Polis who is excited to not only introduce our speaker but he is thrilled to have the opportunity to thank our physician members for all of their incredible work through the pandemic. As we continue to think about diversity, equity and inclusion as an organization, the health of LGBTQ persons is extremely important, and it is something I am truly proud to work on with the NCMS Education Committee and the Board of Directors. This entire education series is an opportunity for us to do just that each time: learn and grow together.

I look forward to continuing these initaitves as well as more through the course of 2021. As always, please know I am here as a resource for all physician members. Never hesitate to reach out to me!

Sincerely,

Paige Brophy, Executive Director

paige@nocomedsoc.org