WSMA Annual Meeting

The WSMA is governed by a House of Delegates comprising elected delegates from each county medical society, qualified state specialty societies, and members of the WSMA board of trustees. There is one young physician delegate, one resident delegate, and three student delegates (one from each of the three medical schools in Washington state). Each county society has one delegate for every 50 active WSMA members.

Each medical specialty society is entitled to elect or appoint one delegate and one alternate, provided that such specialty society has as members at least 100 active members of the WSMA, or if the specialty society has fewer than 100 members, 50% of its members must belong to the WSMA.

Delegates are expected to be available for one year of service from the beginning of the House of Delegates meeting until the House of Delegates meeting the following year. Delegates shall be available to provide input and information and guidance to the WSMA’s board of trustees and executive committee as they administer and interpret policy set by the House of Delegates, and as they make policy decisions when the House of Delegates is not in session.

All legislative power of the WSMA—including the power to alter, amend, or repeal the bylaws—is vested in the House of Delegates. All business of the House of Delegates is conducted according to parliamentary procedures as outlined in "The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure." The speaker of the House serves as parliamentarian. The speaker of the House is Matthew Grierson, MD, of Seattle. The vice speaker of the House is Ray Hsiao, MD, of Seattle.

Policymaking at the meeting is primarily driven by resolutions. A resolution is a proposal asking the WSMA to take a position or act on an issue. Learn more about resolutions and how they help create and guide WSMA policy.

How the House of Delegates operates

The House convenes its opening session on Saturday morning of the WSMA Annual Meeting. At this time, guests are invited to speak to the delegates and all reports and resolutions are referred to reference committees. This is followed by meetings of the reference committees on Saturday.

The House holds a second session on Sunday morning. The reference committees present their reports for consideration by the House on Sunday.

Learn more about the House of Delegates.

Learn more about delegate duties.

Download the 2024 Delegate Handbook

Navigation Note: The file has bookmarks and links for each of the agenda items, including reports and resolutions. Once you have downloaded and saved the document, it should open with the bookmarks showing on the left side for easy navigation. If for some reason you don’t see the bookmarks, select View, Navigation Panels, and Bookmarks to show the links. You’ll note that you can drill down to individual bookmarks on some items like the WSMA Bylaws and Policy Compendium. You will want to be sure you are viewing it in Acrobat Reader and not online for the bookmarks to work. There is a lot of material here and the bookmarks and links should make it more manageable to navigate.

Disclaimer: Reports and resolutions included in the delegate handbook are items to be considered by the WSMA House of Delegates. No action has been taken on any of these items. Resolutions are submitted by WSMA delegates and delegations, the WSMA board of trustees, and WSMA sections. They are informational only until they have been acted upon by the House at the 2024 WSMA Annual Meeting. The statements and opinions expressed in resolutions are those of the authors and the WSMA makes no representations of any kind about the accuracy of information contained therein. Only those items that have been acted upon by the House can be considered official.

WSMA’s virtual reference committees allow WSMA members the opportunity to review and provide feedback on resolutions in the weeks prior to the Annual Meeting of the WSMA House of Delegates in the fall. These secure, password-protected members-only discussion forums provide for greater access to the policymaking process, allowing WSMA members from across the state ample opportunity to participate in the WSMA’s primary policymaking engine and helping to streamline the reference committee process.

Testimony provided in the virtual reference committees is compiled and provided to the reference committee members prior to the Annual Meeting and distributed to members attending the in-person reference committee hearings at the meeting. Testimony provided in the virtual reference committees is given equal weight to that of in-person testimony.

Resolutions are posted in the virtual reference committees starting in mid-to-late-August. Learn more and join the discussion on our Virtual Reference Committees page.

Welcome Breakfast for Early Career/New Attendees (7 a.m. Saturday)

This special breakfast on Saturday morning gives our younger/newer physician cohort and first-time meeting attendees a chance to network and learn how policymaking works at the House of Delegates.

Update from the Department of Health (9:00 a.m. Saturday)

Umair A. Shah, MD, MPH, is the Secretary of Health for the great state of Washington, appointed by Governor Jay Inslee in December 2020. He is the first Asian-American physician of South Asian descent to serve in this leadership role in the history of Washington, home to nearly 8 million people. Dr. Shah earned his BA (philosophy) from Vanderbilt University; his MD from the University of Toledo Health Science Center; and completed an Internal Medicine Residency, Primary Care/General Medicine Fellowship, & MPH (management), at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. He also completed a global health policy internship at World Health Organization headquarters in Switzerland. Over his career, Dr. Shah has been a clinician, innovator, educator, and leader in health. He has been a champion for underserved communities, at the intersection of health and health care, while charting a fresh course in health by centering on the cornerstone values of equity, innovation, and engagement.

WAMPAC Luncheon (12:30 p.m. Saturday)

A perennial favorite event at the Annual Meeting, the WAMPAC Luncheon is an annual opportunity to connect WSMA members with key policymakers. We’re excited to announce two great speakers for this year’s event, scheduled for 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28. Tickets for the luncheon are $50 and can be purchased when registering for the Annual Meeting. Tickets to the luncheon are free for WAMPAC Diamond Club members—you can join the Diamond Club here.

Sen. Patty Kuderer
A longtime legislator and advocate for patients' access to care, Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue) is the leading candidate to be the state's next insurance commissioner. In that role, she'll be the state's regulator of insurance carriers -a key position for WSMA's advocacy work on issues like prior authorization reform. Sen. Kuderer will provide an update on her campaign and a preview of her priorities as insurance commissioner.

Sen. Annette Cleveland
The chair of the Senate Health & Long Term Care Committee, Sen. Annette Cleveland (D-Vancouver) is one of the state's leading voices on health policy and a strong partner of the physician community. We're proud to award Sen. Cleveland WSMA's 2024 Legislator of the Year and we are grateful to her for joining us to receive the award and share her perspective on what's in store in the 2025 legislative session.

Breakout sessions (2 p.m. Saturday)

Trauma-Informed Medical Care and LGBTQIA+ Patients – Shelby Wade

Wade will discuss what trauma-informed care is and how it serves communities like the LGBTQIA+ population. She’ll cover the history of LGBTQIA+ identities in health care, gender- and sexuality-based violence, and the current political and cultural climate and its impact on mental health and access to care.

This activity has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit^™.

Shelby Wade is a field traumatologist, compassion fatigue educator and practitioner, and a green belt in Lean Six Sigma health care quality management, with a decade of experience in victim services and hospital settings. During her career, she served as the prevention and education coordinator of a sexual assault crisis center, training professionals and working over 1,400 hours in an emergency department with forensic nurses, trauma victims, and their families. She chaired and rebuilt a three-county-wide community-based Sexual Assault Response Team, assisted the National Mass Violence Center in developing content on readiness, response, and resilience in mass violence events, and coordinated national and international learning collaboratives in trauma- focused cognitive behavioral therapy at the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center. Currently, she coordinates the EQUIPTT center, a training and consultation site within the National Child Traumatic Stress Network to enhance equity, quality, and impact of evidence-based practices for trauma using technology.

POLST Updates – Mark Beiter, DO, Sharmon Figenshaw, ARNP, and Hope Wechkin, MD

Learn how to use the updated Portable Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment form for appropriate patents and how to comply with best practices about POLST information- gathering and storage.

This activity has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit^™.

Mark Beiter, DO, is a palliative care physician and medical director of the palliative care team at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. He works in an outpatient palliative care clinic focused on cancer patients, as well as other people living with serious illness. He is also an educator and believes in training other physicians and health care professionals to have the tools necessary to make sure all patients with serious illness receive the best care possible. He leads a variety of communication trainings including VitalTalk and the Serious Illness Communication Guide.

Sharmon Figenshaw is a board-certified nurse practitioner with 30 years of experience in hospice and palliative medicine, providing compassionate support to people and their trusted companions in the midst of serious illness. In addition to over 20 years on the Washington Serious Illness Care Coalition, she serves as a clinical consultant for the Honoring Choices Pacific Northwest POLST/Serious Illness Clinical Skills program aimed at improving how we care for people with serious illness in Washington state. By strengthening communication skills among clinicians and teaching the proper use of POLST to guide care, she hopes to ensure that each person will receive care that honors their goals and values—and have the opportunity to shape their own ending. She enjoys seeing patients as a relief nurse practitioner for the Okanogan Palliative Care Initiative, a service of Family Health Centers in Okanogan County.

Hope Wechkin, MD, is the medical director of EvergreenHealth Home Care Services (Hospice and Home Health) in Kirkland. A family physician by training, she has devoted herself full-time to the practice of hospice and palliative medicine since 2007. She has served on the medical staff of the Palliative Care Consult Service at the University of Washington Medical Center, developed and led the EvergreenHealth Palliative Medicine program from 2007-2021, and is a member of the clinical faculty of the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Wechkin served as chair of the Washington Serious Illness Care Coalition from 2020-2023, served as course chair for the first-ever national conference on “planned death” at the University of Washington in 2019, and is lead author on the first national clinical guidelines for voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED) published in 2023.

Plenary session (3:30 p.m. Saturday)

Healthcare Worker Well-Being: Strategies for Improvement at the Local and National Levels – Jonathan Ripp, MD, MPH, Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation

Dr. Ripp will discuss the current state of physician well-being and the system-level interventions needed to optimize health care worker well-being. He’ll discuss the role of the Lorna Breen Foundation in addressing credentialing questions and leveraging state medical associations. Session participants will be able to describe the current state of well-being and what’s driving it, define a number of system-level interventions to promote well-being, and consider the role of individuals, organizations, associations, and foundations in the efforts to advance well-being.

This activity has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit^™.

Jonathan Ripp, MD, MPH is a professor of medicine, medical education and geriatrics and palliative medicine, dean for well-being and resilience, and chief wellness officer at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He oversees efforts to assess and provide direction for system- and individual-level interventions designed to improve well-being for all students, residents, fellows, and faculty in the Mount Sinai Health System. He is the co-founder and co-director of CHARM, the Collaborative for Healing and Renewal in Medicine, a national group of medical educators, academic medical center well-being leaders, experts in burnout research and interventions, and learners all working to promote learner and trainee wellness.

Plenary session (4:30 p.m. Saturday)

AMA Update from AMA President-Elect Bobby Mukkamala, MD

Bobby Mukkamala, MD, a board-certified otolaryngologist, was voted president-elect of the American Medical Association in June 2024. Dr. Mukkamala will update WSMA delegates and members on the federal priorities of the AMA and the house of medicine.

Presidential Inauguration (5:15 p.m. Saturday)

Join us as we inaugurate our 2024-2025 president, John Bramhall, MD, PhD, Seattle anesthesiologist and associate medical director of Harborview Medical Center. “There is no physician voice without a conduit,” says Dr. Bramhall. “The WSMA is looking out for the health, well-being, and efficient functioning of the medical system as a whole of all the physicians in the state. The WSMA enables physicians as a group to have significant influence.” For a profile of WSMA’s incoming president, keep an eye out for the Sept/Oct 2024 issue of WSMA Reports, in your mailbox in early September.

Reception for all attendees (5:30 p.m. Saturday)

After the inauguration of WSMA 2024-2025 President John Bramhall, MD, PhD, join Dr. Bramhall and other WSMA leaders for a reception in his honor.

All meetings are at the Historic Davenport Hotel. The staff office is in the Flowerfield Room.

FRIDAY, September 27

Noon - Executive Committee Meeting

4:00 pm - WAMPAC Board Meeting

6:00 pm - Board Dinner

6:45 pm - Board Meeting

SATURDAY, September 28

6:30 am - AMA Delegation

7:00 am - Registration/Visit Exhibits

7:00 am - Welcome Breakfast for Early Career/New Attendees

7:00 am - Reference Committee Orientation Breakfast

8:00 am - HOUSE OF DELEGATES

9:00 am - Update from the Department of Health with Umair A. Shah, MD, MPH, Secretary of Health

9:30 am - Break with Exhibitors

10:00 am - Reference Committee Hearings

12:30 pm - WAMPAC Luncheon

2:00 pm - Breakout Session – Trauma Informed Care
                  Breakout Session – POLST

3:00 pm - Break with Exhibitors

3:30 pm - Plenary Session: Jonathan Ripp, MD, MPH, Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation

4:30 pm - Bobby Mukkamala, MD, AMA Board of Trustees

5:15 pm - Presidential Inauguration

5:30 pm - Reception for all attendees

SUNDAY, September 29

7:00 am - WSMA Past Presidents’ Breakfast

7:00 am - Early Career Joint Governing Councils

7:00 am - CMS Caucuses

8:00 am - HOUSE OF DELEGATES

Accreditation with Commendation

The Washington State Medical Association (WSMA) is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The WSMA designates this live activity for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits^™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Disclosure Statement

The content of this activity is not related to products or services of an ACCME-defined ineligible company, also known as a commercial interest; therefore no one in control of content has a relevant financial relationship to disclose.

The WSMA may have a photographer or videographer on-site at this event to gather imagery for use by the WSMA in its communications materials and channels as well as for media outreach. These images will be the property of the WSMA, and the WSMA will not sell or otherwise market event imagery. If you have any questions regarding imagery taken at a WSMA event, please contact Milana McLead at 206.441.9762 or milana@wsma.org.

The WSMA wishes to thank the following corporate partners for their generous year-long contributions. For more information, contact Milana McLead at milana@wsma.org or 206.956.3629

Exclusive Premier Partner

Founded in 1981 under the auspices of the WSMA, Physicians Insurance is the Northwest's leading medical professional liability insurance company, physician-owned and exclusively endorsed to this day by the WSMA. For over 30 years, Physicians Insurance has remained the stable, committed and local insurer for physicians, clinics, facilities and hospitals, providing risk-management consulting, continuing medical education and claims administration services to more than 7,000 members in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Wyoming.

Promoter

The Everett Clinic and The Polyclinic are part of Optum. Together, we’re building an integrated care model to offer personalized care with both on-site and virtual care options. We remain clinician-led, committed to our communities with more than 100 years of partnership, and dedicated to helping people live healthier lives.

Meeting Exhibitors

We are excited to welcome exhibitors back in person. Additional information about exhibit opportunities including the schedule and pricing can be found here. Exhibit space will be limited. If you’d like to reserve your spot, the exhibitor application form can be found here: 2024 WSMA Meeting Exhibitor Registration Form. For additional information about exhibiting, contact Shannon Bozarth at 206.956.3626 or slb@wsma.org.