CVMS Board Meeting Minutes
February 1, 2024

Members Present: Dr. Greg Warth, Dr. Lisa Barr, Dr. Alexandria Berger, Stacie Cutchins, Claudia Tellez, Dr. Peter Van Geertruyden

Location: Zoom

Time: 6 PM to 8 PM

The meeting was called to order at approximately 6:13 p.m.

Timing of Future Board Meetings:

We discussed the timing of future board meetings. Some people are not able to make it on the Thursday evenings at 7 PM which had been our standard meeting time, so last week it was changed to 6 PM on Thursdays, but this is not working out either because there were several people who couldn't make this meeting. So, after some discussion we decided to make our future standard Board meetings at 7 PM on the third Monday of every month by zoom. The calendar on the website will be changed and other Board members will be notified. As you know, our current Coastal Virginia Medical Society already has tax-exempt 501(c)6 status with the IRS which may allow members to deduct the dues as an office expense but not as a personal charitable expense. The Foundation will allow donations to be tax-deductible as a charitable expense.

Foundation:

We have applied for our 501(c)3 Coastal Virginia Medical Foundation, which will allow us to receive tax deductible donations, grants and sponsorships and will also allow us to provide goodwill for the community in the form of scholarships, fund raising events, medical research, and any other charitable missions that we would like to support at the discretion of the Board.

Membership Report:

Our membership is growing, but very slowly. We discussed many options for trying to enhance our membership. One of these options is to expand the roster to include an Affiliate Membership consisting of nurse practitioners, physician assistants, medical office managers, physical therapists, podiatrists, and other allied health professionals. These professionals are already included in the membership of Medical Society of Northern Virginia and the Richmond Academy of Medicine. As a group they could potentially have one or two non-voting seats on the Board, depending on how large this group becomes. Membership fee for affiliate members has yet to be decided. The concept of affiliate membership still needs to be approved by the Board. Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Member Benefits:

We need to continue to provide benefits to our members in the form of recruiting, education, corporate sponsorships, discounts, etc. The list of benefits needs to expand as much as possible so that it would become foolish not to join. Our current members are our best recruiters for new members. If we treat them well, the news will travel. We should always be thinking of ways in which we can provide better services and benefits for them.

Connection with Medical Center Radiology and Other Groups:

Peter Van Geertruyden, MD, representing Medical Center Radiology, a large independent group of radiologists who are concerned about many of the same issues that we are, was formally introduced. Many of their members may join us as they see that their concerns align with ours. We offered to give a presentation to them at one of their upcoming meetings to let them know what we are about. Peter will try to set that up for us soon. We will plan to do the same with other large groups in the area. At our next Board Meeting, we will invite representatives of several of the large groups of physicians, so they can learn more about us and spread the word to their organizations.

Lisa, Alex, and I will meet at Alex’ home next Monday evening and discuss how we will contact these large groups and begin to prepare for a presentation. The same panel of physicians will need to meet with each group and do the same highly polished, professional presentation for about 15-20 minutes at each one. Lisa will bring a list of potential groups. TPMG, Group for Women, Urology of Virginia, Atlantic Ortho were examples of some of the groups mentioned today.

Dr. Mehdi Parva has expressed some interest in being on the Board. Dr. Peter Van Geertruyden may want to serve on the Board as well. I will reach out to both. According to our Bylaws, we can have as many at 12 Board members.

We will continue to discuss CVMS with individual physicians and group leaders as much as possible.

Public Communication:

Drs. Alexandria Berger and Tom Chamberlain are preparing television appearances that would help explain what we are doing as a medical society and discuss pertinent topics in medicine and answer questions from the studio audience.

Membership Meetings:

Our next full membership meeting will be held in the evening of March 13. Dr. Karen Rheuban has agreed to provide a presentation by Zoom to the in-person meeting to be held at the Westin Penthouse with heavy hors d’oeuvres and wine from 6:30 pm to 9:00PM. We will explain at that meeting what we are doing for the membership, and perhaps present a short survey for them to fill out. Also, the leaders of the large groups should be invited. I can do a brief PowerPoint presentation of our progress. We will try to get together a packet of information and membership cards to hand out.

We discussed offering a monthly luncheon at a local restaurant, where members could get together, have fun, discuss things without a formal schedule, mostly just for the comradery - perhaps at Gus and George’s or some other restaurant at a centralized location. Each member would pay for their own meal, but maybe we could get a discount. It should be easy to get to, have a large enough room for perhaps 40 people that we could use for free, have fast service, large tables, and not much background noise. I think this might go over better than a monthly happy hour. Please send me your suggestions.

Committees:

We need to begin forming and organizing committees to work on projects in between Board Meetings. Several of our members have already expressed interest in being on a committee. Chairpersons of our current committees are as follows: Dr. Keith Berger - Advocacy Committee; Dr. Alex Berger - Public Health Committee; Dr. Greg Warth – Communications Committee (newsletter and website); Dr. Lisa Barr – Membership Committee; Dr. Jerome Blackman – Mental Health Committee. We need a Marketing Committee, a Finance Committee, a Foundation Committee, an Education Committee, and others will be formed as the need arises. I will try to write up descriptions of each Committee and put them on the website.

Executive Director:

We are getting to the point where we need to hire an Executive Director to help us manage all the things we need to do. Will develop a job description and ask Susan Herring what a reasonable amount of compensation for her/him would be. I have a couple of possible candidates in mind but would be willing to listen to suggestions. (I have communicated with Susan about this since the last meeting and she provided a great deal of information and guidance about this that I will share with you.)

Microsoft Teams:

I have been setting up Microsoft Teams online which is basically free for nonprofits, unlike Slack and Google Workspace. Soon, I will be sending invitations to the Board to enable you to connect easily with our CVMS Team, where we can “chat” and communicate more freely. It will be a place where all our documents can be maintained, tasks can be outlined, calendars can be updated, etc. You will each receive a new email address, which you will need to set up as a new account in your email program using the temporary password that I will give you. After you set up your new email, you will then be able to access our Teams account.

Connecting with Surrounding Medical Societies:

We were able to talk with Claudia Tellez, the Executive Director of the Medical Society of Northern Virginia, who attended this meeting. Regarding membership, MSNVA relies heavily on their corporate sponsors to attract members. I think it would be helpful for us to do the same. I will talk with her more about this and start calling and requesting more potential sponsors for us. We will also collaborate with surrounding societies on combining support for CON proposals at the next MSV Annual Meeting so we can present a stronger front for making a change.

Urgent Legislative Issues:

There are urgent legislative issues that come up intermittently that require our immediate attention. This is usually a request for our members to send letters to their elected district representatives providing opinions on certain pieces of legislation that will be voted on by the Virginia General Assembly in the near future (sometimes just a day or two away). Stacie Cutchins from MSVIA mentioned one of them today, regarding the potential change in the Medical Malpractice Cap for children under 10, asking that we send letters to oppose that bill. We usually receive these notices from the Medical Society of Virginia. As soon as I receive these alerts, I will send them out by email to the membership and to the newsletter recipients requesting a particular action either to oppose or to be in favor of the bill in question depending on whether it aligns with our values. Of course, each member can change the proposed letter as he or she wishes either in favor of or against the bill. But at least they will know about it and can act on it.

Having discussed all the issues on the agenda (and more) and hearing no further discussion, the meeting was then adjourned at about 8:00PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Gregory J. Warth, MD, FACP

Current President

Coastal Virginia Medical society

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