Telugu Doctor to head AMA section
 Dr. VijayaLakshmi Appareddy, a founding member of North American Telugu Association (NATA) has been elected Chairperson-Elect of the International Medical Graduates (IMG) Section of the American Medical Association.
In 2002 Appareddy became the first Indian American woman to receive a non-career Presidential appointment when President George W. Bush appointed her to President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities at a White House Ceremony.
The IMG section of AMA represents and promotes the interests of physicians who graduated from medical schools outside the U.S. and Canada. The eight-member IMG governing council is elected by the 33,000 IMGs who are members of the AMA. About 252,000 or 25 percent of all licensed physicians in the US are IMGs who graduated from medical schools in 127 countries. Indians rank the highest among the IMGs constituting 20.7 percent.
Appareddy a graduate of Osmania Medical College completed her graduate medical training and gained board certification in both adult psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York. After her training, she was assistant professor of psychiatry at Brown University's medical school in Providence, R.I. She then moved to Chattanooga and set up private practice in psychiatry.
A former chairperson of the board of trustees of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), Appareddy has served as a delegate and alternate delegate to the AMA House of Delegates for the last four years. She also serves on the board of governors of Parkridge Valley Hospital Systems in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
During her tenure as chairperson of AAPI's board of trustees, the Indian American met with Indian President Dr. Abdul Kalam, and other federal ministers and presented various Initiatives. One initiative that came out of those meetings was a proposal by Dr. Balasubramaniam to introduce Emergency Medical Systems in India.
Appareddy said that she was inspired to become a medical doctor by her father Dr. N. Balakrishna Reddy, FRCS a retired plastic surgeon at Hyderabad. She was also inspired by her grand Uncle Late Dr. Bezawada Gopal Reddy garu the Chief Minister in Andhra State. She is married to Ramesh Appareddy the founding president of NATA.
News Posted: 19 July, 2011
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