ebecca J. Patchin, M.D., the first anesthesiologist elected to the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association (AMA), has been appointed as the Secretary of the Board of Trustees.

Dr. Patchin has a long history of leadership in organized medicine. On the AMA Board, she currently chairs the Committee on Membership and is past chair of the Task Force on Medical Liability. She also has served on the Finance, Audit, Nominations and the Organization and Operations committees and on disaster and quality task forces of the board.

Prior to her election to the AMA Board, Dr. Patchin chaired the AMA Committee on CME, co-chaired the Liaison Committee on Graduate Medical Education and served on the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

Dr. Patchin has a private practice in pain management in Riverside, California, where she will continue to practice while beginning a half-time appointment in the Department of Anesthesiology at Loma Linda University in California.

In addition to her AMA activities, Dr. Patchin is a delegate to the ASA House of Delegates from the California Society of Anesthesiologists, where she served previously as Vice-Chair of the Legislative and Practice Division. Dr. Patchin also has served the California Medical Association as chair of its Council on Legislation for seven years and as a delegate to the AMA House of Delegates.

Widely admired as one of the most insightful and visionary leaders of American medicine, Dr. Rebecca Patchin is a great credit to our specialty and is an important reason that the influence of anesthesiology at the national level is greater than it has ever been.

John B. Neeld, Jr., M.D., is Chair of Anesthesiology, Northside Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia. He was ASA President in 1999.