NYACP Presidents Message

July 3, 2025
John Hall, MD, FACP, Chapter Co-President
Todd Simon, MD, FACP, Chapter Co-President

Dear NYACP members,

We have made it through June – the Cranford Rose Garden at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden is at peak bloom, and so is allergy season! The Knicks have unfortunately been eliminated from the NBA playoffs after an exciting run, and amazingly the Mets are now in 2nd place place in the National League East. Not much to report from Buffalo on the baseball front, unfortunately. However, the Buffalo Bandits of the NLL are league champions, with an impressive 3-peat! Big win over the Saskatchewan Rush.

For those of us working in teaching hospital settings and in academic Internal Medicine, June is always a heartwarming and poignant time, as well as a time of anticipation. Our 3rd year residents are graduating and moving on to either subspecialty fellowship or a new job. At the same time, our new PGY1’s are arriving for orientation at the end of the month, and looking forward, with some trepidation no doubt, to the start of internship. For many of us, this is truly the start of the “New Year”, and a very busy time. Good luck to all our new incoming residents in particular. For you teaching faculty out there, please encourage your students and residents to become ACP members if they are not already!

What has NYACP been up to? The week of May 12th  was our annual NYACP Advocacy Week. We held events every day that week to support advocacy and enhance the mission of NYACP to improve the practice environment for physicians. These activities included a Resolution Writing Workshop, and a discussion on “Advocacy Made Simple – Where to Begin”. One highlight was certainly NYACP Advocacy Day in Albany on Wednesday, May 14th. Our delegation included Todd, Kellin King and Nandini Anandu (the Chair and Vice-Chair of the NYACP Health and Public Policy Committee), Susan Lee (Past Chapter President) and Medical Student Jonathan Herrera (Albany Medical College). The day was expertly planned and led by NYACP staff Loretta Ponesse (Executive Director) and Amanda Allen (who you “met” in last month’s newsletter!). During this busy day, we were able to meet with 1 Assembly Member, 6 of our state representatives’ offices, and   Governor Hochul’s Senior Policy Advisor for Health. On your behalf and on behalf of our patients, we advocated for the Primary Care Investment Act, the Step Therapy Override Bill, and a bill to make Prior Authorization significantly easier. We also urged the Governor to once again veto the Wrongful Death Bill, when it gets to her desk again this year (the Governor vetoed this bill in 2022, 2023, and 2024 – at least partially due to our efforts). Please feel free to let us know if you would like to get more involved in advocacy with NYACP. Also, be sure to contact us if you want to communicate your thoughts on any political issue that impact your practice, or if you have an idea for an ACP resolution.

Thank you for all who participated in our recent NYACP Council / Board Meeting in June. It was well attended and productive. Keep a look out for our new NYACP Services newsletter that will be making it’s debut later this year.

Meet your NYACP Staff! This month’s staff spotlight is on Karen Tucker LaBello. Karen is the Director of Education and Chapter Operations and has been a member of the Chapter staff for 19 years. Originally from Olean, NY, she earned a B.S. in Business/Finance from SUNY Oneonta and built her career in nonprofit association management, with experience in both credit unions and healthcare. What Karen enjoys most about working at NYACP is the members. She is deeply passionate about their success and always ready to offer guidance and support. Karen is a proud mother of two sons, Benjamin and Andrew—both of whom many Chapter members may remember as enthusiastic helpers at various events over the years. Recently, she took a (nearly) cross-country road trip with Andrew as he started a new chapter of his life in Colorado.

In her free time, Karen enjoys visiting her sons, being an avid Bills and Mets fan, camping, and going on walks with her husband and their two Yorkies. She also cherishes time spent with her remarkable 95-year-old mother.

Dad joke of the month! What do you call a cow that just gave birth?   Decaffeinated.

Well, that’s all for this month. We hope everyone is doing well, and maybe even has some plans for rest and relaxation coming up this summer. Send us some vacation pics. Who knows, you may make it into a future newsletter. As always, we remain available to you for any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions.

Until next time, all our best!

Todd and John