American Association for Primary Care Endoscopy

William H. Coleman, MD, PhD, is one of the pioneers in primary care endoscopy. He has 25 years of gastrointestinal endoscopy experience, and, for 15 years, he served as the director of the endoscopy laboratory at Highlands Medical Center, Scottsboro Alabama. He taught the first endoscopy course offered by the AAFP 20 years ago. He lectures nationally on gastrointestinal topics and has taught family medicine residents endoscopy for the past 20 years. He is currently the Director of the Office for Family Health Education and Research at the Huntsville Regional Medical Campus of the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UASOMH). He has served as board chair and president of the 94,000 member American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and president of the academy's foundation (AAFPF).

Thomas A. Kintanar, MD, FAAFP, ABFM, (Leo, IN) is in private practice with Associated Family Medical Consultants Lutheran Medical Group in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is also a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Indiana University active in teaching students and residents.
Dr. Kintanar received his B.S. in microbiology from Indiana University in Bloomington in 1978. He received his medical degree from Southwestern University College of Medicine in the Philippines in 1983, and completed the Fort Wayne Medical Education Family Practice Residency Program in 1986. He is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and is an AAFP Fellow, an earned degree awarded to family physicians for distinguished service and continuing medical education. He has served on the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Family Physicians and its Transformed Board of Directors. He has also served as Past President and Board Chair of the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians.
Dr. Kintanar is on the Board of Directors and Director of Medical Education at St. Joseph Hospital. He is on the Board of Trustees for Lutheran Health Network, the Governing Board of the Fort Wayne Medical Education Program, and is the Medical Director of Glenbrook Nursing Home, Wood Youth and Youth Services, Heartland Hospice, Lutheran Life Villages, and Coventry Meadows.
Dr. Kintanar has been teaching nationally with the American Academy of Family Physicians Annual Scientific Assembly in various capacities such as the endoscopy workshop, lecturing on procedural based activities and other topics of clinical interest. He maintains a very active private Family Medicine practice providing the full scope of care including Obstetrics and Pediatrics. He provides the full scope of procedural services including upper and lower endoscopy with all advanced options. In addition, he performs laparoscopy, hysteroscopy, endometrial ablation, dilatation and curettage, and the newly emerging Halo procedure to address Barrett’s esophagus.

Dale A. Patterson, MD, FAAFP, (South Bend, IN) is the Program Director of Memorial Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program, South Bend, Indiana. He graduated from Michigan State University, College of Human Medicine, and completed his Family Medicine residency at Memorial Hospital. Dr. Patterson includes colonoscopy and EGD in his practice and teaches the procedures to residents. He has presented nationally on endoscopy and previously led a research project comparing colonoscopy quality among physicians of various specialties. Dr. Patterson has also lectured extensively on teaching procedures to residents and assessing the competency of learners to perform procedures, including endoscopy. Dr. Patterson is also Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine.

Stuart Forman, MD, (Martinez, CA), is a family physician, the medical director of critical care services at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center and an attending physician at the CCRMC family medicine residency program. He performs upper and lower diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy and shares gastroenterology call with several family physicians and gastroenterologists. He has been an instructor in EGD and colonoscopy at the AAFP annual meetings.

Paul W. Davis, MD, FAAFP, (Anchorage, AK), is the medical director of the ANMC Colorectal Cancer Screening Program at the Alaska Native Medical Center. He is a past president of the Alaska Academy of Family Physicians and a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He was most recently the Director of GI Endoscopy and Medical Education at the Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation in Dillingham, Alaska where he practiced the full spectrum of rural Family Medicine. Paul served as Associate Director and full-time faculty at the Alaska Family Medicine Residency for more than 11 years, directing the surgical and procedural training program. He completed his medical education at ORU School of Medicine in Tulsa, Oklahoma and his Family Medicine residency training at Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1986. He obtained two additional years of General Surgery and GI endoscopy training from 1989-1991 in Anchorage, Alaska. Dr. Davis completed a faculty development fellowship at the University of Washington School of Medicine in 2000. Paul has been teaching flexible sigmoidoscopy since 1986 and colonoscopy and EGD since 1991. He has published articles and letters on endoscopy since 1998 and has served as a contributor to primary research on H. pylori sponsored by the CDC Arctic Investigations Program.

Zachary Bechtol, M.D., (Grove, OK), has been in private practice in rural Northeast Oklahoma for the past 12 years. He received his medical degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1995; completed his residency in Family Medicine at St Josephs in Wichita, Kansas. He is a Volunteer Associate Faculty for OUHSC Department of Family Medicine and teaches fourth-year medical students on their rural clerkship, and is an active member of the Oklahoma Physicians Research Network. Dr. Bechtol has received several recognition awards including: Oklahoma’s Foundation for Medical Quality Award, Oklahoma State Medical Association’s Putting Prevention into Practice Award, and the OAFP’s Family Physician of the Year. He has actively performed endoscopic surgery since his practice started.

Derek Hubbard, MD (Madison, WI) is a Clinical Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin – Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health Department of Family Medicine.  Madison, WI.  He earned his MD degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and did his residency at the Family Practice Residency, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Eau Claire, WI.  Dr. Hubbard has been performing colonoscopy since 2003, and has been a member of the AAPCE since its inception.  He has trained a new faculty member last year and is in the process of recruiting another senior member to solidify the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s program in performing and teaching colonoscopy.  Their goal is to create a formal fellowship with strict guidelines for entrance and competency.  Dr. Hubbard has given a number of educational presentations during his career including participation in the 2010 and 2011 AAPCE Conferences. 

Ted J. Hudspeth, MD, FAAFP, (Hammond, LA), is a full-time family medicine physician at Ochsner Clinic Foundation in Hammond, LA. He has practiced there since 1993 after he completed his residency at LSUMC-Shreveport. Dr. Hudspeth has performed endoscopy since he went into private practice and currently performs two full days of colonoscopies and EGD's per week in Hammond and Baton Rouge, LA. Dr. Hudspeth has taught colonoscopy workshops for the AAFP.

Mark Koch, MD, (Fort Worth, TX) FAAFP directs the gastrointestinal endoscopic education of family medicine residents at The John Peter Smith Family Medicine Residency in Fort Worth, Texas. Dr. Koch graduated from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1992 and completed his Family Medicine Residency at San Jacinto Methodist Hospital in Baytown, Texas and has been teaching Family Medicine residents since 1995. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical School. Dr. Koch has an active private and teaching practice and participates in research regarding colon cancer screening in Safety-Net Health Systems. He is a past chair, current member, and avid public speaker for the Tarrant County Board of the American Cancer Society.

Brian W. Meeker, DO, FAAFP, (Iowa City, IA), has been the medical director at the Virginia Gay Hospital, a critical access hospital with 3 affiliated rural health clinics, in Vinton, Iowa, for the past 18 years. He is also the Trauma Director at his hospital and Medical Director of all the ambulance services in his county with a population of 25,000. Dr. Meeker established a primary care endoscopy program at the Virginia Gay Hospital which currently accommodates four family physician endoscopists including two from neighboring Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Dr. Meeker received his D.O. degree from Des Moines University in Iowa and completed his Family Practice Residency at St. Luke’s Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 2010, he was awarded the Sports Medicine award by the Iowa High School Athletic Association and, previously, received the Governor’s Volunteer Award.
Dr. Meeker’s clinical appointments include Adjunct Professor of Family Medicine at the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa, and also hold the same academic title from his alma mater, Des Moines University. Through the Carver College of Medicine, Dr. Meeker is participating in a “rural track” to give family medicine residents more exposure and training to procedural medicine. Dr. Meeker also hosts residents from the nearby Cedar Rapids Family Medicine Residency and offers exposure and training for endoscopy procedures.

Jim Miller, MD, FAAFP/Sports Medicine, (Richmond, VA), has been in private practice in the Richmond area since 1980. During the course of his Family Practice residency at Riverside Hospital in Newport News, VA, he had considerable exposure to endoscopy. At that time, colonoscopies and EGD s were just getting under way, with most colonoscopies performed under general anesthesia. Following completion of his training, he continued his education on endoscopy, first with office-based flexible sigmoidoscopy and nasopharyngoscopy and then advancing to full colonoscopy and EGD s in an office-based endoscopy suite in 1988. All procedures remain a daily part of his private practice. He is active in teaching as an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia and has received teaching awards for his work. He joined the AAPCE at its inception at the Washington, DC, AAFP meeting and has been active ever since. Sports Medicine is another area of unique expertise, working as a National Team Physician for USA Swimming and chairing the Sports Medicine Task Force for USA Swimming. He also practices international Sports Medicine as a member of the FINA Sports Medicine Committee and is a co-editor in Sports Medicine for the FINA Aquatic World Magazine. These two posts take him all over the world to Aquatic World Championships and Olympic Games. He has chaired and lectured at the FINA World Sports Medicine Congress and lectured at the IOC World Conference on Prevention of Injury and Illness in Sports.

Andy Shull, MD (South Bend, IN) works for the Memorial Medical Group in South Bend, IN, predominantly serving urban underserved and uninsured patients.  He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Memphis, his M.D. from the University of Tennessee, and a master’s degree in public affairs from Indiana University.  He graduated from the Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program in 2010 with an additional year’s focus on health services management.  Since graduating, he teaches residents in his office, in their clinic, as well as on the inpatient medical services.  In addition, he teaches medical students regularly from IUPUI.  He is board certified by the ABFM and is an active member of numerous groups, including the AAFP, Indiana State Medical Association, and is a director at large for the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians.  He has special interests in a variety of office-based surgeries, including colonoscopies and EGDs, and has a special interest in obstetric care.

Scott Stewart, M.D., (Shawnee, OK), is a full-time private practice family physician practicing in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He received his Medical Degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and completed his residency at St. Joseph Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas. He has provided full-scope family medicine for his community for 10 years and is passionate about expanding access to quality procedural care for patients through the training of primary care physicians. Dr. Stewart offers a variety of procedures for his patients and those referred by community physicians including upper and lower GI endoscopy.

Scott M. Strayer, MD, MPH, (Charlottesville, VA), is Associate Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences at the University of Virginia. He has a passionate interest in cancer prevention. During his first faculty appointment in the Air Force’s Family medicine residency at Saint Louis University, he established the first Endoscopy training program for Air Force Family Practice residents. He currently conducts NIH-funded research on cancer prevention and directs a family medicine endoscopy program at the University of Virginia. He continues to teach family medicine fellows, residents, and medical students and practices in the faculty family medicine clinic at the University of Virginia. He is a founding Board Member of the American Association for Primary Care Endoscopy.

Ryan D. Torrie, MD, (Taber, Alberta), received his degree of medicine from the University of Utah. He then completed his family medicine residency at Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, IN. Incorporated into his residency, he completed 3 years of gastroscopy and colonoscopy training. He currently practices in Taber, Alberta as a sole endoscopy provider and rural practitioner in a community hospital. He is currently on the planning committee for the annual Endoscopy Skills Day in Banff, Alberta. Ryan is involved in primary care endoscopy research and serves on a provincial rural CME advisory committee. Ryan is committed to excellence in colorectal cancer prevention and awareness.

Sarah Turner, MD, (Fort Wayne, IN), is in her second year of residency at the Fort Wayne Medical Education Program in Fort Wayne, IN. Growing up in Canada, she received her Honors BSc in Medical Geography at the University of Calgary, Alberta in 2004. She then pursued her medical degree at St. George's University, studying basic sciences in Grenada, West Indies, and then doing most of her clinical studies in New York City, and graduating in 2011. Her interests in medicine include endoscopy and obstetrics, as well as preventive and integrative medicine. She is an active member of her residency program, helping to teach medical students on service as well as in volunteer settings.