American Medical Association voters elect David Barbe, M.D. as new president

David Barbe-AMA president-elect. Photo by Missouri State Medical Association

Physicians gathered at the Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association have voted for David Barbe, M.D., M.H.A., a family physician from Mountain Grove, Missouri, to be the group's next president-elect, according to the physician organization. Following a year-long term as president-elect, Barbe will assume the office of AMA president in June 2017.

He will replace Lexington, Kentucky-based emergency physician Steven Stack, who, in his early 40s, is the youngest AMA president in 100 years.

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Barbe was first elected to the AMA Board of Trustees in 2009 and served on numerous AMA committees and task forces. He served as chair of the board from 2013–2014, as well as a member of its executive committee from 2011–2015.

Prior to his election to the AMA board, Barbe was a member of the Council on Medical Service, a committee of the AMA, and served as its chair from 2008 to 2009. As a member of the council, he participated in the development of policy related to coverage of the uninsured, healthcare system reform, Medicare reform and health insurance market reform.

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Barbe's experience as a medical society leader includes serving as head of the governing board for the Missouri State Medical Association in 2003 and MSMA president in 2005, the AMA said. He was also a longtime member of the group's legislative committee and a board member of the Missouri Medical Political Action Committee.

He received his bachelor's degree with honors in microbiology and his medical doctorate from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine, where he received his Master of Health Administration. He completed his residency in family medicine at the University of Kansas affiliated program (now Via Christi) in Wichita, Kansas.

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For more than 30 years, Barbe has practiced family medicine in his hometown of Mountain Grove. After 15 years in independent practice, he merged his medical group with Mercy Clinic in Springfield, Missouri, a 650-physician, multi-specialty integrated group. In his current role as vice-president of regional operations for Mercy, he is responsible for five hospitals, 90 clinics and more than 200 physicians and advanced practitioners. He also serves on the executive management team of Mercy-Springfield, which was ranked No. 1 in the nation in IMS Health's 100 Top Integrated Health Networks in 2012; it is one of Truven Health Analytics' top 20 large community hospitals.

The new AMA president-elect continues to live and practice in his hometown of Mountain Grove, where he and his wife, Debbie Barbe, B.S.N., R.N., have two children and six grandchildren.

Twitter: @JELagasse