The Texas Medical Association has long held regular meetings in the central metropolitan areas of the state, bringing together hundreds of physicians – and yet, not as many as it could. For Li-Yu Mitchell, MD, a trip in for a meeting can be “a haul,” with a drive to San Antonio, for example, sapping six hours.
“A lot of docs here just cannot take that time,” Dr. Mitchell said. “We have so many patients that need to be seen here, and you just can’t be away from a practice that long.”
But TMA is listening. For more than 170 years, the Texas Medical Association has stood strong for physicians amid turbulence, but it can only do so by making continual changes, says TMA Council on Member Experience member Deborah Fuller, MD. This year, members will see such adjustments to TMA events, from location to content to scheduling, to deliver high impact with lower costs all around.
“We’re constantly looking at how to improve the satisfaction rate for members, to retain and recruit,” the Dallas obstetrician-gynecologist said.
“We want to represent the largest number of physicians we can with the best representation for those physicians. We want to continue to be the number one [state] medical association in the nation.”
But keeping pace with the needs of 59,000 members – without drastically raising dues – takes some creative solutions. Between the rising cost of hosting events in large cities like Austin and member feedback from TMA’s many rural and nonmetro members, the council last year reached a conclusion: It was time for TMA events to change.
“Austin, as a place to have meetings, has been very expensive,” Dr. Fuller said. “So, the council discussed taking meetings to the people.”
This year’s TexMed, TMA’s annual conference, will be held in San Antonio. In 2026, the association will anchor it in the Coastal Bend in Corpus Christi.
After receiving warm welcomes in distant counties on its 2024 Listening Tour, TMA was more than ready to take the next step and bring its high-quality event programming directly to members as well, including insights on the business of medicine and leadership development.
“There are physicians who want to rise within their hospital systems. There are physicians who want to do more with their county medical societies. There are physicians who want to do more within the TMA. There are physicians who are in group practices who might be interested in an MPH or an MBA,” Dr. Fuller said. “We want to offer a pathway for them to get those dreams accomplished.”
Local medicine matters
With members distributed over more than a quarter-million square miles, the burden of distance is not new to TMA. The vast and varied experiences of Texas physicians can be a strength for one of the nation’s largest state medical associations, but only if members are able to effectively collaborate, says Dr. Mitchell.
So, this October, TMA is coming to Smith County’s seat, Tyler. Kicking off the association’s newest event series, Local Medicine Matters, TMA intentionally planned conferences in nonmetro counties. In years without a state legislative session, the association plans to host two local conferences; just one will take place in 2025. In 2026, TMA plans a sojourn to West Texas with Local Medicine Matters in Abilene.
These events will deliver TMA’s standard of high-quality CME and ample networking, with county medical societies working closely with association staff to home in on what content is most relevant to the region. While Texas physicians share common struggles, different places have different problems, Dr. Mitchell says, just as TMA learned on its 2024 Listening Tour.
For instance, the Tyler family physician has concerns about markedly poor health outcomes in Northeast Texas. For colleagues facing overwhelming mortality rates in their rural practices, “we need to know what they need help with,” she told Texas Medicine. “What I’m hoping is the regional conference will let them know there is help.”
Dr. Mitchell also hopes the regional conference also shows local physicians the true value of TMA with resources on offer and a chance to communicate their daily burdens. Nearly three-quarters of Texas physicians were employed at the start of 2024, according to data from a Physicians Advocacy Institute/Avalere Health study, and Dr. Mitchell worries the shift in business models may inadvertently keep physicians apart.
“I want to help doctors understand they actually have a voice,” she said. “In an employed setting, you’re in your little silo, your own world with your own bosses. One of my big aims as CMS president is to find things that are more collaborative. We’re doctors, not on different teams.”
And serving the team of medicine is the same reason TMA is partnering with the Border Health Caucus to host the 2025 Leadership Summit in El Paso, Sept. 18-20. The caucus’ annual Border Health Conference already serves as a functional regional conference, bringing physician leaders together to share data, strategies, and solutions to the distinct health challenges facing the Texas-Mexico border area.
Now, TMA is bringing its leadership development programming, highly requested by membership across the state, to bolster the caucus’ efforts to make effective change. Similarly, the Council on Member Experience has identified another way to capitalize on the association’s leadership training. Starting in Fall 2026, the seasonal conference preceding a legislative session will be TMA’s Leadership Summit, preparing physicians from all backgrounds to advocate effectively for their profession and communities. That meeting is slated to take place in Irving.
Leading the way
Heading up a health care team, navigating business roles, and bringing pressing issues to legislators all require physicians to be leaders. As medicine’s challenges continue to mount, TMA member physicians have asked frequently for help building the skills to tackle them.
In answer, January 2024 saw the association’s first Leadership Summit, a seasonal conference dedicated to leadership development and collaborative problem-solving. The summit is built on ideas found in TMA’s long-running and ever-popular Leadership College, a selective, application-based leadership development program for members in their first eight years of practice post-residency/fellowship.
“You come out of residency knowing about your specialty, but you don’t necessarily have that extra leadership training,” Dr. Fuller said. “Whether it’s speaking in front of a group, whether it’s exploring pathways in the business portion of your practice, Leadership College can help teach you all of those.”
By extension, events like the Leadership Summit equip all physicians, even those not enrolled in the program or those outside its eligibility window, to tackle what are often the hardest challenges in medicine.
“It’s part of life as a physician,” Dr. Fuller said. “Yes, you can live within your bubble, you can just go to practice every day and go home, but many of us are physicians because we participate in life. We need to, because what happens to us in medicine no more is about us just doing a little something to effect change. Now we have to effect change in a broader sense.”
As TMA reconfigures its event schedule, staff are keen to preserve as many leadership development opportunities as possible. In January, the association hosted a Leadership Collective, akin to a mini meeting, for members with a taste for leadership, followed by training in February for TMA and AMA medical student chapter leaders from all 16 Texas medical schools.
For Dr. Fuller, who teaches a course for medical students at Texas A&M University School of Medicine, reaching those young physicians starts a path to advocacy, one she wishes for physicians at all career stages.
“How I end my lecture is to tell these students if you are voicing a complaint about something that’s happening in medicine, and you are not at the table, you need to get there as fast as you can,” she said. “If you’re timid about becoming more of an advocate, participating in a program like this that is free to you is a wonderful chance.”