AANP President’s Annual Meeting Message 2010

By Carl Hangee-Bauer, ND, LAc
AANP President

The Oregon Convention Center.  Photo by Matthew Santoro, AANP Communications and Media Associate.

The following are my remarks from the 2010 AANP Annual Meeting in Portland, OR, on Wednesday, August 11, 2010.

On behalf of the AANP Board of Directors, I am honored to welcome you to Portland and the AANP’s 25th Anniversary convention and thank you for your dedication to the naturopathic profession.

The AANP is a member-driven organization. There are many people whose work comes together under the banner of the AANP. We are fortunate to have a dedicated executive director in Karen Howard whose love for this profession runs deep as well as her dedicated staff who gets things done. The AANP Board of Directors works on a daily basis to understand the forces impacting our profession and develop strategies to be proactive and grow the legitimacy of naturopathic medicine. Everything the board does is filtered through the question: How does this benefit our membership? This House of Delegates comes together on an annual basis to amend our bylaws; adopt official Code of Ethics, definitions, standards, and position papers; hear reports from AANP officers and leadership; advise or recommend action to the Board of Directors by means of house resolutions; represent our constituents and communicate to them AANP information and actions; and provide leadership and participate as members in committees and taskforces. And you, our members, contribute in so many ways, from your volunteer work on both the state and national levels, educating the public and patients about naturopathic medicine, and, most importantly, providing your patients with the best care naturopathic medicine has to offer.

The Board of Directors has just completed two days of meetings where we took time to improve our internal communications, get updated on the business and challenges facing the association, and discuss our strategic vision to inform the 2011-2012 workplan. Some of the key areas of board interest include promotion of state licensing and increased scope of practice, sustaining and expanding our presence on the federal level, fostering naturopathic outcome studies and scientific affairs, developing strategic coalitions with other groups and associations, and developing programs and strategies to improve the success of our ND graduates.