Dr. Syed (Mustafa) Alavi - President Elect

Dear Members of the Leadership Development Committee:

It is with great pleasure to express my interest to continue on as president-elect to the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians. I believe that my prior leadership experiences as the current vice president, second vice-president and previously a general board member would be a great asset to the academy and I would strive to meet the academy’s core mission and values.

I am grateful to be practicing as a full-scope, delivering family physician at an FQHC with Erie Family Health Centers. Within Erie, I continue to be the champion for family medicine and constantly advocate for the specialty. I also have a deep passion for workforce development and love the opportunities I have to mentor current residents and shape them into full scope physicians. My experience as a family physician over the past 7 years in Illinois has also taught me more clearly that we as a specialty need to be leaders in health care transformation. We have a severe shortage in primary care providers and family medicine physicians are the experts in primary care. We cannot sit back and be humble about our expertise. Our patients will get better care seeing trained family physicians who will be able to manage a majority of our patients' conditions without needing to refer to specialists – thereby reducing health care costs and the need for patients to wait even longer to get the care they need. We need family physicians to step into leadership roles within their own organizations.

As the IAFP president-elect, I would use my passion to help advocate and promote the specialty of family medicine to all and build upon our strategic plan. Throughout my tenure as a board member for the IAFP, I have worked on various projects to support the academy’s mission and vision. I was a speaker for the I-VAC Beyond the Needle podcast series along with helping co-present and develop our New Physicians Boot Camp. I am also currently working on developing our Illinois Pulse podcast series. I also have had opportunities to speak to various reporters about important public health topics affecting our patients such as advocating for a flavored tobacco ban in Evanston and to speak to the primary care workforce shortage our nation faces to a local Evanston reporter.

I am looking forward to being at service to the IAFP.

Sincerely,

Mustafa Alavi, MD FAAFP

View Dr. Alavi's CV