Dr. Head to chair AMA Council on Science and Public Health
AUGUSTA, Ga. th Dr. Alvin Head, Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine, has been elected Chair of the American Medical Association's Council on Science and Public Health. He assumed his new role at the association's House of Delegates Annual Meeting June 17 in Chicago.
(Media-Newswire.com) - AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Alvin Head, Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine, has been elected Chair of the American Medical Association’s Council on Science and Public Health. He assumed his new role at the association’s House of Delegates Annual Meeting June 17 in Chicago.
As chair, Dr. Head will be the council’s spokesperson to the House of Delegates on topics such as disparities in maternal health care, the use of hormones for anti-aging, male breast cancer, the use of tasers by members of law enforcement and the risk of violence in emergency rooms. He also will preside over the council’s regular business meetings. Dr. Head has served as a member of the council since 1991.
“The council’s goal is to promote the science behind the issues and advocate for the best public health outcomes,” Dr. Head says. “As chair, my responsibility will be to prioritize the work we do within the association and present our reports to the larger group of delegates for adoption. From there, the AMA will promote those issues and potentially create new public policies.”
Dr. Head will be one of 12 council members, which is representative of a wide range of specialties, and will meet with the group about every other month.
“I am trained as an anesthesiologist, but I remove that hat when I meet with the council,” he says. “We are a group of physicians that represent the broader scope of science and medicine and their impact on issues of medical significance. I learn more every time I attend a meeting.”
Dr. Head, a faculty member since 2002, focuses his research at MCG on the treatment of sickle cell patients with nitric oxide. He holds two patents related to that research.
He is the association’s representative to the Section Committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Medical Sciences and immediate past president of the Academy of Anesthesiology. He is a reviewer for the New England Journal of Medicine, Anesthesiology and the journal Blood.
Dr. Head earned his medical degree from Emory University, where he also completed a residency in anesthesiology. He completed two fellowships, one in cardiothoracic anesthesia at Emory and another in thoracic anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Also attending the meeting from MCG were:
Dr. Hadyn Williams, chief of the Section of Nuclear Medicine, as a delegate from the American College of Nuclear Physicians; and Dr. Fabiola Weber, chief radiology resident, as a delegate from the American American Alliance of Academic Chief Residents in Radiology.
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