Congratulations to Two Indiana Family Medicine Physicians

Family physician Frederick R. Ridge, M.D., from Linton was voted to become president-elect of the Indiana State Medical Association (ISMA) and Thomas A. Felger, M.D., was elected to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).

Dr. Ridge was voted in at the organization’s 2008 Annual Convention, Sept. 19-21 in Indianapolis. He will assume the presidency in September 2009 and serve one year as the ISMA’s leader.

Dr. Ridge, who is the health officer for Greene County, has served three terms as Speaker of the ISMA’s House of Delegates, the organization’s policy-making body comprised of approximately 270 members from all around Indiana. As speaker, he presided over the annual meeting of the House of Delegates using rules of parliamentary procedure.

A graduate of the Indiana University School of Medicine, Dr. Ridge completed his residency at IU and then started his rural solo medical practice in 1978. Currently, he is medical director of Ridge Medical and Rural Health Center and is on the medical staff of Greene County General Hospital where he serves on the Executive Committee. In the past, he has served as the hospital’s chief of staff and director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.

A diplomat of the American Board of Family Medicine and a Fellow with the American Academy of Family Physicians, Dr. Ridge was named Indiana’s Family Physician of the Year in 1997. For three decades, he has been team physician for Linton High School’s football team. He also is a clinical associate professor at IU School of Medicine in the family medicine program.

The ISMA represents approximately 8,300 Indiana physicians from every county in Indiana. Since 1849, the association has carried out a mission of promoting sound health care policy in the public, private and governmental sectors and supporting continuing medical education for the state’s doctors.

Thomas A. Felger, M.D., FAAFP, a family physician in Granger, Ind., serves on the board of directors of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Dr. Felger was elected to a three-year term in September 2008 by the AAFP’s governing body, the Congress of Delegates. The AAFP represents more than 93,000 physicians and medical students nationwide. Dr. Felger has been a family physician for more than 30 years. He began his career in solo practice in his hometown of Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1971. He co-founded Fort Wayne’s first urgent care center, and served as a part-time medical director for two HMOs. Additionally, Dr. Felger served as an associate director of the Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program in South Bend, Ind. Currently he is a clinical assistant professor of family medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine in South Bend. Dr. Felger also has chaired two hospital family medicine departments.

As an AAFP board member, Dr. Felger advocates on behalf of family physicians and patients nationwide to inspire positive change in the U.S. health care system. At the state level, Dr. Felger has been an active member of the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians since 1972, where he has served as president and chairman of the board of directors. He also has held leadership roles on many of the IAFP’s commissions and committees, including the Health Services Commission and the Legislative Commission. In addition, Dr. Felger is an active member of the Indiana State Medical Association and has held numerous leadership positions in the Twelfth District Medical Society. At the national level, Dr. Felger has been an active member of the AAFP since 1972. He has served as an AAFP representative to the American Medical Association’s Relative Value Update Committee since 1999, as well as its Practice Expense Subcommittee, where he has focused on finding a fix for flaws in the current physician payment system. Dr. Felger currently serves on the AAFP’s Commission on Practice Enhancement and is the former chair of the Commission on Health Care Services. In addition, he serves as a delegate to the AAFP’s Congress of Delegates.

Dr. Felger graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington, with a bachelor’s degree in medical science. He earned his medical degree from Indiana University Medical Center in Indianapolis and completed a rotating internship at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Dayton, Ohio.

The Indiana University Department of Family congratulates both Drs. Ridge and Felger on their wonderful accomplishments and wishes them the best of luck.

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