Kisha N. Davis, MD, MPH, FAAFP, a family physician in Gaithersburg, Md., serves as the new physician member of the American Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors. The AAFP represents 115,900 physicians and medical students nationwide. Davis was elected to a one-year term by the new physician constituency during the AAFP National Conference of Special Constituencies and was confirmed by the AAFP’s governing body, the Congress of Delegates.

A new physician is a doctor in his or her first seven years of practice following residency completion. As the new physician member of the AAFP Board of Directors, Davis represents the interests and opinions of the new physician constituency to the AAFP Board of Directors and the Congress of Delegates. She also advocates on behalf of family physicians and patients nationwide to inspire positive change in the U.S. health care system.

Davis is the director of community health at Casey Health Institute, a new integrative medicine primary care practice in Gaithersburg, Md., that opened earlier this year. Previously, she practiced at Chase Brexton Health Services, Inc., serving an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse population in Columbia, Md.

In 2011, Davis was named one of 15 White House Fellows and worked for a year for the U.S. Department of Agriculture where she advised the agency on nutrition issues, helped implement new breastfeeding policies in the workplace, and worked to increase collaboration between community health centers and the Women Infants and Children (WIC) program. In this capacity, she gained first-hand experience working at the highest levels of the federal government.

Davis became an AAFP member in 2007 and has assumed numerous leadership roles during her tenure. She currently serves on the Commission on Governmental Advocacy and has served as a delegate to the AAFP National Conference of Special Constituencies since 2008. In 2008 and 2009, Davis served as one of two AAFP delegates to the American Medical Association’s Young Physician Section.

In addition to her national contributions, Davis has served on the Maryland Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors since 2008. In 2012, she was chosen president-elect, and she also serves as MAFP’s Special Constituencies Chair and on the Commission on Health Care Services and Public Health, and the Commission on Membership and Member Services.

As a clinical instructor, Davis has taught medical students at both the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She is a member of Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health. She has travelled on medical missions to New Orleans and Zimbabwe, as well as Honduras, where her fluency in Spanish afforded her greater understanding of the health challenges facing her patients and their families. For her disaster relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, Davis was awarded the Governor’s Citation and Maryland National Guard Civilian Service Medal.

A Maryland native, Davis completed her bachelor of science degree in biological anthropology and anatomy at Duke University. She earned her medical degree at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine where she received the Lyman Stowe Award for humanitarianism in medicine. She completed her residency at the University of Maryland where she served as chief resident and later earned a master’s degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore

Davis is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and has the AAFP Degree of Fellow, an earned degree awarded to family physicians for distinguished service and continuing medical education.