Looking Ahead: A Message from SMCMA’s 2026 President December 17, 2025 Areas of interest(s): leadership, President's Message, Selvakumar Dear Colleagues, It is an honor to serve as your 2026 President of the San Mateo County Medical Association. I am grateful for your trust, and I look forward to working alongside you to strengthen organized medicine in San Mateo County. As a primary care physician in private practice, I experience firsthand the pressures facing physicians today – administrative burdens, payment challenges, workforce shortages, and ongoing threats to physician autonomy and the patient–physician relationship. These realities make SMCMA’s mission more urgent than ever: to advocate effectively, protect the practice of medicine, and ensure physicians have a strong, credible voice with local and state decision-makers. Our profession is also changing in meaningful ways. The physician workforce in San Mateo County is increasingly younger and now reflects a female majority – an important shift that brings new perspectives, leadership strengths, and priorities. SMCMA will meet this moment by ensuring our advocacy and member engagement are aligned with today’s workforce: supporting practice sustainability, advancing policies that improve access to care, and creating more accessible pathways for involvement – especially for physicians balancing demanding clinical schedules and family responsibilities. In the year ahead, my focus will be on two priorities: Advocacy that delivers results. We will continue to build and maintain strong relationships with elected officials and key stakeholders, elevate physician concerns, and stay active on the issues that shape our practices and patient care. Engagement that reflects who we are today. We will work to strengthen participation across specialties, practice types, and career stages by providing physicians with a local platform to voice the issues that are important to them and by assessing what we can achieve collectively in San Mateo County. We want to ensure physicians see a clear value in staying connected to SMCMA. I encourage you to stay involved – attend an event, respond to action alerts, or simply reach out and share what you are seeing in your practice. Your voice matters, and SMCMA is strongest when it reflects the real experiences of physicians across our county. Thank you for all you do for your patients and for our medical community. I am excited for the year ahead and proud to serve alongside you. Sincerely, Pradeepa Selvakumar, MD 2026 President San Mateo County Medical Association
