Dear NYACP Members,

It’s hard to believe that the March 2026 Presidents Message puts us only about 6 weeks away from the ACP Internal Medicine Meeting. It feels nice right now to think about being in sunny San Francisco in April, since as we write this, we just had our biggest blizzard in a decade, and there are 18 inches of snow on the ground in Brooklyn! Or, as John says, “eh, child’s play”. It’s nice to have somewhere else be the snow capital of the US, even if only temporarily. Hopefully by the time you all read this, a lot of that snow will have melted, and we will have started to turn the corner towards Spring. Along those lines, the vernal (or Spring) equinox is coming up soon on March 20^th. Here are some fun pearls about the vernal equinox from the Farmer’s Almanac: On the March equinox, the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere receive roughly equal amounts of sunlight; neither hemisphere is tilted more toward or away from the Sun than the other. In fact, equinoxes are the only two times of year when the Sun rises due east and sets due west for all of us on Earth!

As for our usual sports update, of course the big news this past month was the winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, Italy. Turned out, there was a lot of drama and excitement and some wonderful results for the U.S. team. We won the most gold medals ever for the USA in the winter Olympics (twelve). More importantly than the number of medals, it was the stories and the performances that were really fun. Congrats to the women’s and the men’s hockey teams, who both won the gold over Canada in overtime! Congrats and a big thank you to Alyssa Liu, and Mikaela Shiffrin, and Jordan Stolz, and Elana Meyers Taylor, and many others for providing moments of magic and joy and national pride. We also want to remind everyone that the 2026 Winter Paralympic Games will be held from March 6 to March 15, 2026, featuring 79 events. This is a truly inspiring event, and well worth watching. Of course, basketball and hockey are still going on. The New York Knicks are doing well in basketball. The Buffalo Sabres are currently in third place in their division. Finally, they may make it into the playoffs! The Sabres currently hold the NHL record for the longest consecutive postseason drought (at 14 seasons). Wish them luck! Also, the Major League Soccer season has just started – Todd is a Red Bulls fan but understands that some of you might mistakenly root for NYCFC.

ACP Chapter Well-Being Leaders! To help create a shared language around physician well-being, ACP National is excited to announce that the ACP Well-being Champion curriculum is available as a free, member-exclusive resource. The official launch will be recognized on March 18, 2026, in conjunction with the National Academy of Medicine’s Health Workforce Well-Being Day. We encourage you to use the Well-being Champion Curriculum toolkit to promote awareness of this initiative. The link to the toolkit is below.

https://www.acponline.org/leadernet/chapter-communications-toolkits/well-being-champion-curriculum-communications-toolkit

ACP Continues to Lead in the Area of Vaccine Education! ACP has issued updated COVID-19 vaccine practice points, advising that adults aged 65 and older and adults aged 18 to 64 who are at increased risk for severe COVID-19 should receive the updated 2025-2026 mRNA-based vaccine. ACP also notes that adults aged 18 to 64 who are not at increased risk may consider vaccination. The practice points did not evaluate evidence or make recommendations for pregnant adults or those who are immuno-compromised. “COVID-19 Vaccines for 2025-2026 in Adults Who Are Not Pregnant or Immunocompromised: Rapid Practice Points from the American College of Physicians” in Annals of Internal Medicine. The recommendations for these special populations of patients are being addressed in conjunction with our partners at other medical specialty societies such as the ACOG and IDSA. ACP’s recommendations are based on a rapid review of recent vaccine evidence and epidemiologic data, which found that receipt of an Omicron-adapted mRNA vaccine was associated with reduced all-cause mortality and COVID-related hospitalizations compared with not receiving the vaccine. The review also found myocarditis after mRNA vaccination to be uncommon, most often affecting males aged 12 to 24 years. You may read the complete set of Practice Points on the Annals website.

Shout-out to the NYACP Council/Board! Here in our Presidents messages, over the past 10 months or so we have introduced you to all the NY Governors and Governors-Elect. We also wanted to take this opportunity to say a big “Thank you!” to the many members of our NYACP Council / Board. The C3 Governors’ Council and the C6 Board are comprised of the Councilors, District Presidents, Committee Chairs and Vice-chairs and others who devote their time and energy to our Chapter. NYACP would not be the effective and representative organization that it is without all of you. If you haven’t already, please take a look at the NYACP website and see who your local district and committee leaders are. Feel free to reach out to them, or of course to your Governor, if you have any thoughts, comments, or questions. Also, please consider becoming more involved with NYACP by joining a committee or running for a leadership position.

Looking forward to NYACP Advocacy Week! It is not too early to start looking ahead to one of our most important events of the year – NYACP Advocacy Week. This will take place the week of May 4^th, and we have terrific events planned for each day of that week. We’ll start off with a talk on “Advocacy Made Simple” by our own Executive Director, Loretta Ponesse. Additional webinars will take place each day, highlighted on Friday by a talk by our New York State Health Commissioner,  James V. McDonald MD, MPH. Dr. McDonald has graciously agreed to join us to discuss hot topics including vaccine policy in New York, as well as other timely public health issues facing our state. Of course, advocacy week is defined by the in-person Advocacy Day in Albany, when a number of our members will visit our elected officials to discuss issues important to our members. Please let any of us know if there is a particular message that you believe needs to be communicated in Albany.

Dad jokes of the month!

What do you call a doctor who fixes websites?
A URL-ologist.

Why did the mattress go to the doctor?
It had spring fever.

How did the doctor cure the invisible man?
He took him to the ICU.

Well, that’s it for this month. We wish you a happy and healthy start to Spring. Once again, thank you for all you do! Stay safe and warm,

Todd and John