AMA Elections

Candidate for election at 2025 Annual Meeting: Laura Faye Gephart, MD, MBA

| 7 Min Read

Elections will be held at the Annual Meeting of the House of Delegates on June 10, 2025.

Officers and five councils are elected by the American Medical Association House of Delegates (HOD) at the Annual Meeting. The elections are conducted during a special election session under the supervision of the Committee on Rules and Credentials and the chief teller, who are appointed by the speakers. The speaker and vice speaker are responsible for overall administration of the elections. Voting is conducted by secret ballot.


Laura F. Gephart, MD, MBA

2025-2029

 


Dr. Gephart has been involved in organized medicine since day one of medical school. A lactation specialist prior to medical school, she was inspired to write policy supporting those willing and able to breastfeed. She had heard of organized medicine through her sister, three years ahead of her in medical school. Eager to make a change, she walked up to her campus AMA and state medical society representative and said, “Hi. I am Laura Gephart, and I am your next Delegate.” 

Dr. Gephart’s policy interests have broadened over the last 20 years to reflect the breadth of medical practice across the United States and reflect her MBA education completed while teaching elementary school. She left the state where she was born, raised and educated for residency to experience health care delivery elsewhere in the nation and ensure a more informed perspective on health care in diverse geographic and practice settings. 

Dr. Gephart has served organized medicine in a variety of roles: 

  • Trustee, California Medical Association
  • Vice speaker and alternate delegate, AMA MSS
  • Member, AMA Speakers’ Special Committee to Reform the House of Delegates
  • Elected RFS member, Council on Medical Service, AMA
  • Member, TEXPAC Executive Committee
  • Trustee, Texas Medical Association
  • Inaugural committee member, Task force on LGBTQ issues, TMA
  • Board member, Hidalgo-Starr and Erie County Medical Societies
  • Chair, AMA YPS and Pennsylvania Medical Society Early Career Physician Section
  • Member, Board of Directors, Pennsylvania Medical Society PAC
  • Member, Bylaws Committee, Pennsylvania Medical Society

Her education and training in California, Washington DC, Florida and Texas solidified the insight that medicine is variable across geographies, specialties and practice settings.

Her involvement in the states and sections assures a deep understanding of the processes and priorities of the various stakeholders in the house of medicine. 

Her relationships across the house of medicine ensure a listening ear is available to the smallest delegation and the most vulnerable voices have a vociferous advocate behind closed doors.

Laura Faye Gephart, MD, Involvement and experience

The threats to the profession, our patients and the public health are real. A few that rise to the top include the urbanization of health care and education, the politicization of science and the practice of medicine, and the pipeline for all the tools we use to provide modern medicine from medical devices, pharmaceuticals and infrastructure. My leadership role in Western Pennsylvania enables me to advocate for physician needs to those not in clinical practice; I was overjoyed when my recent advocacy for AI assisted charting allowed a physician colleague to leave her office with no open charts and no pajama time. 

Profession: The practice of medicine is a profession—our calling. The practice of good, efficient, evidence-based medicine gives us joy. Physicians dedicate more of our lives to learning the practice of medicine than any other person in health care. Our dedicated years of blood, sweat and tears coupled with rigorous testing and continuing certification ensure we are the best advocates for and leaders of patient care, especially as technological advances provide more opportunities for decision support. 

Practice setting: The art of medicine is practiced in a myriad of settings from the solo practice doctor to the large, multispecialty employed practice. In each patient encounter the physician must lead the practice of the art of medicine based on the best available science not the bottom line or the payer. Multiple practice options must remain viable so if a practice setting becomes hostile to the physician-patient relationship, physicians have options to continue to care for patients and the public health while providing for their families. 

Public health: The AMA was founded in part to protect the public from quackery. We have more tools than ever to achieve this part of our mission. Our policy supports funding of research, dissemination of data, education of the public and financing key public health initiatives to better the public health. 

Payment: Payment must be equitable and highlight the expertise of physicians as leaders of the health care team. While Medicare payment reform is a primary priority for AMA advocacy, we must also continue our advocacy for the health care of America’s pregnant people, babies and children with Medicaid. Our policy on payment must continue to evolve along with the health care system. Our advocacy must elevate our policy in line with our mission, “To promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.”

Laura Faye Gephart, MD, My vision

Medicine is personal. In practice and training it is hours spent away from family and those you love. We, the doctors, skip our workouts and delay our own health care visits to ensure we do not miss a diagnosis or a critical lab finding. We are there for our patients when they have urgent questions or need a last-minute procedure. All of my post op patients get my cell phone number in case of questions or issues that the on call doctor cannot address. 

Yet this care is not the root of our burnout. Our burnout comes from barriers to practicing evidence-based care, including: 

  • Prior auth and step therapy requirements that delay care
  • Laws and regulations that limit or pervert care
  • Mis- and disinformation about basic public health measures that result in morbidity and mortality
  • Employers overloading physicians and forcing us to oversee advance practice providers without the power to improve performance or spend adequate time to provide comfort and healing to our patients 

Medicine is our calling; not just in the one-on-one education and empathy we show our patients, but in our involvement in organized medicine and our communities. Educating family and emergency medicine residents and medical students is one of the most fulfilling parts of my practice. 

We educate and sponsor the next generation of physician leaders, “Lifting as we climb,” and continuing to improve imperfect education, training and health care systems, recognizing our errors of the past. We must uplift our colleagues through the challenges of practice and bolster trainees through the rigors of medical training. 

Watching a resident or student get excited about health policy and advocacy is thrilling. Most recently, a local resident came with me to NAC and is excited to get more involved in organized medicine and health care advocacy. We educate and sponsor the next generation of physician leaders, “Lifting as we climb,” and continuing to improve imperfect education, training and health care systems, recognizing our errors of the past. We must uplift our colleagues through the challenges of practice and bolster trainees through the rigors of medical training. 

“I respectfully ask for your vote for the Council on Medical Service.”—Laura Faye Gephart, MD, MBA, FACOG, URPS

Laura Faye Gephart, MD, Looking forward and back

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