Scottsdale,
Ariz. - The new Chief Medical Consultant for the Arizona Medical Board began her medical career focusing on the diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory diseases of the muscles and joints of patients in her home state of Nebraska. Kelly Sems, M.D., maintains she is still helping patients, but in a different way. As a consultant at the Medical Board, “you‘re helping an individual patient as well as patients in general,” she explained.
Dr. Sems, who is a board-certified rheumatologist, is moving into the top medical consultant post nearly two years to the day she first joined the agency. She succeeds Mark Nanney, M.D., who is trained in Family Practice. Different areas of interest, different visions of the role of Chief Medical Consultant, right? Not at all. Like Dr. Nanney, she wants to provide a fair and expedited examination of the complaints against physicians. “Don‘t look for any major changes just because there‘s a new chief,” she says.
Dr. Sems became a medical consultant originally to have more time to spend with her family. She spent four years in private practice in Phoenix after relocating from Kearney, Nebraska in 2001. She discovered she enjoyed the Medical Board position because “it‘s rewarding to be able to see a case from the beginning to the end.” Dr. Sems adds, “You‘re helping in a process to a just end.”
Dr. Sems‘ first order of business is to find someone to fill her former job. She says she‘s looking for a physician who has Family Practice experience to join the agency team. It‘s an opportunity, a good first step she believes, for a physician who may be interested in administrative medicine.
Dr. Sems hopes the new medical consultant will appreciate the other physicians who work for the agency as much as she does. “I‘m blessed to have such great medical consultants to work with.”
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