With great pride and honor I accept this presidential torch as we blaze into our 30th year of service!   I salute my immediate predecessor, Dr. Letitia Bridges, for all her myriad accomplishments as well as the other phenomenal women who served in this position before me.

As a past scholarship recipient, the Association of Black Women Physicians (ABWP) possesses an endearing place in my heart. As a practicing physician, my passions include improving quality of life for those with disabilities, relieving sufferers of chronic pain, and ending the stigmas that have created mental health disparities. The strong partnerships I created afforded me success in those areas.  As president, I intend to foster synergistic collaborations within and beyond ABWP because we will achieve more as a cohesive community rather than as lone individuals.

Now, more than ever, we must look deep within our hearts and believe. We must always be dreamers and fighters. As long as we are on this earth, it is our responsibility to ourselves, our children, and to our race to continue opening

doors of opportunity for others so that their entrance will have an even greater positive impact on this world. (paraphrased from “Happy Birthday” by Esther Sherrod Watkins, my mother, 2001)

Glenna Tolbert, M.D. Q.M.E