By Steve Levine
Originally published on the Texas Medical Association website.
Susan Rudd Bailey, MD, is American physicians’ new leader in the battles against COVID-19 and outside interference in patient care. The Fort Worth allergist took the oath of office as president of the American Medical Association on Sunday, becoming the sixth Texas physician to lead the organization.
“After more than 30 years in a small, private practice, I’m a passionate defender of the independent physician and, like the AMA, I’m determined to remove all those obstacles that have come between us and our patients,” Dr. Bailey said in her online installation address, delivered from a Fort Worth video studio.
Dr. Bailey’s organized medicine resume includes stints as presidents of the Texas Medical Association and Tarrant County Medical Society as well as speaker of the TMA and AMA House of Delegates.
“It’s been a joy to watch her negotiate this path,” said Robert Rogers, MD, who has been Dr. Bailey’s partner in Fort Worth Allergy & Asthma Associates for more than 30 years. “I was 100% convinced that she would be president of the AMA. Watching her do this, I know that she had that as a goal. There was nothing in her that said there’s going to be a limit, a ceiling that she couldn’t break through.”
Dr. Bailey said she didn’t have her “eye on that prize” early in her career.
“At that point in time, there had never been a female president,” she said. But Richmond family physician Nancy Dickey, MD, winning the office in 1997 “made all the difference for me. That made it all real for me.”
Texas physician leaders say they are proud of their colleague’s accomplishment and very comfortable with her being the face of American medicine in these difficult times.
Tarrant County Physician Online 