Autumn 2009: Register

Portrait

Joseph Stubbs

Courtesy Joseph Stubbs

Influencing health care policy

Alumni lead key national organization

By Lindsey Bomnin 12C

A trio of Emory alumni hold key executive positions this year in the American College of Physicians (ACP), the national organization of internists.

Joseph Stubbs 79M of Albany, Georgia, is president; Jim Stackhouse 76M 79MR of Goldsboro, North Carolina, is treasurer; Frederick Turton 73C 77M of Sarasota, Florida, is the chair of the Board of Regents.

“The ACP is very active in promoting universal access to affordable health care coverage for all U.S. citizens,” says Stubbs. “We are also emphasizing the need for more primary care physicians and more innovative models of delivery to provide better quality care to our patients at less cost.”

The ACP, which is 129,000 members strong, develops policy through a combination of proposals from individual chapters and committee development, much of it centering on ethics and practice administration.

After graduating from Emory’s medical school, Stubbs interned and became chief resident at the University of Washington in Seattle before serving on several ACP committees, completing two terms on the Board of Regents. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, a distinction that recognizes individual medical service and contribution. Stubbs’s father, Wytch Stubbs Jr. 52C 55T 66M 66MR, is a retired member of Emory’s Board of Trustees.

Turton completed both his undergraduate and medical degrees at Emory and is also a fellow of the American College of Physicians. He served as the governor of the ACP’s Florida chapter and chair of the Board of Governors before being elected to his current position.

Emory was “forward thinking and provided me with a good understanding of the complexities of health care delivery, beginning in the first year of my medical school experience,” he says. “The world of health care is full of Emory graduates, and that network serves me well.”

Stackhouse graduated and served his residency at Emory, while becoming a member of the ACP. He then participated in the ACP’s North Carolina chapter and became a regent. He is a master of the American College of Physicians, an honor that only 650 internists hold internationally.

Emory experts also serve as consultants to the ACP.