Your Young Physician Section (YPS)
N E W S L E T T E R
Meet Your New YPS Chair
Laurel Barr, MD
I am excited and honored to serve as your Chair of the Young Physician Section. I am a Buckeye, born and raised. I grew up in Northeastern Ohio. After attending OSU as an undergraduate then medical school at NEOMED, I gave up four seasons and completed residency at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. While I enjoyed not shoveling snow, I started a family and quickly discovered that grandparents are cheaper than nannies. I settled back in Columbus and have been practicing Emergency Medicine in the area ever since.
Early in my career I thrived on caring for sick patients and loved bedside teaching, but changes during the pandemic caused me to become a patient advocate through OSMA and other organizations to break down systemic barriers to care. Although I have only been involved in this organization for a few years, I have found commissary and camaraderie in this group of like-minded individuals all working together to improve patient care, public health, and physician autonomy.
Advocating for my profession has caused me to recognize the lack of financial and business skills we are taught in medical school and how this detrimentally affects patient care. Therefore, I am currently pursuing EMBA from OSU. I am also an AMA delegate, WPS Member-at-Large, and am humbled to be elected OSMA Secretary/Treasurer this year. I am looking forward to putting my new skillset to use for the betterment of the OSMA and the broader medical community. I also advocate through the American College of Emergency Physicians and currently serve as their national YPS Chair and on the Ohio Chapter Board of Directors as Secretary.
2026 Annual Meeting Highlights
YPS continues to represent your interests at our Annual Meeting. We proposed and passed resolutions on Staffing Shortages, Supporting Ohio Medicaid Reimbursement for the Collaborative Care Model (CoCM), Supporting Access to Healthcare During Immigration Enforcement, Support for Safe and Equitable Access to Voting, as well as Support for Evidence-Based Immunization Practices. Many of these efforts were successful due to the contributions and teamwork of many dedicated YPS members. Additionally, we passed a resolution to oppose denials based on origin of referral, and reverse CMS cuts to facility-based practice expense payments for physicians which will be immediately forwarded to the AMA and will hopefully, with the help of our fierce YPS representation on the AMA delegation, become national policy.
Emerging Physician Leaders
This was the inaugural year for the Surekha & Deepak Kumar, MD, Endowed Fund for Emerging Physician Leaders. These generous grants will equip their recipients to lead, influence policy, and help shape the systems that impact patient care.
Congratulations to this year's recipients:
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Lauren Ashley Forbes, MD, MPH – Maternal Fetal Medicine Fellow, The Ohio State University
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Engy Habashy, MD – Urologist, Columbus VA
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Jonathan Markle, MD – Internal Medicine Resident, Wright State University
Looking Ahead...
This year we hope to provide leadership, personal finance, and business resources to our members. Look for upcoming webinars on these important topics. I hope to see you there!
