SILVER SPRING, MD – The National Medical Association (NMA) hosted its 121st Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly, themed “Accelerating the March Toward Health Equity,” in New Orleans, LA, July 29 – August 2, 2023, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 601 Loyola Avenue. Each year, thousands of African American physicians, and other health professionals from across the country convene to participate in the scholarly exchange of medical advances and to advance our health policy agenda for the coming years.
Thursday, August 4, 2023, the NMA installed as Board Chair, Maurice G. Sholas, MD, PhD, better known in the greater New Orleans area as Doc Mo Sho. Dr. Sholas is a Harvard-trained pediatric Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) physician and researcher, and a global expert in treating children with disabilities and atypical development. He has given over 80 presentations in 16 states and six countries and has been featured in JAMA Pediatrics and American Healthcare Leader.
Dr. Sholas is the Principal for Sholas Medical Consulting, LLC. In this capacity, he is charged with solving operational challenges for individual practitioners, hospitals, and health care agencies. As a former Senior Medical Director for Children’s Minnesota, he founded a program in Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine. Prior to that, during a six-year tenure, he led Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s Pediatric Rehabilitation Medical Practice. That Practice provided clinical coverage to the largest pediatric inpatient rehabilitation unit in the United States, an outpatient Day Rehabilitation Program for children, as well as outpatient single specialty and multi-disciplinary clinics. With a focus on optimizing function, Dr. Sholas’ work, experience, familiarity with problem solving, collaboration and advocacy which is critical in these times of rampant health disparities and professional inequity served him well as a Trustee for the NMA and will be beneficial in his new position as Board Chair.
Dr. Sholas was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He has traveled the country gathering the educational tools needed for a career that serves children with congenital and acquired physical disabilities as a specialist in Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine. Dr. Sholas was the first practitioner of Pediatric Rehabilitation in the State of Louisiana and founded credentialing and recognition of the specialty in many jurisdictions. He has extensive experience as a Trustee on community and advocacy Boards. He is a member of the Board of Directors Healthy Humor, Inc, a non-profit agency that brings smiles to hospitalized children and seniors across the country. He is the leader of emPOWER NOLA, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program addressing childhood trauma in New Orleans through the reach of school-based health providers and culturally significant groups such as Mardi Gras Indians and Social Aid and Pleasure clubs.
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The NMA promotes the collective interests of physicians and patients of African descent. We carry out this mission by serving as the collective voice of physicians of African descent and is a leading voice for parity in medicine, elimination of health disparities and promotion of optimal health.
Yolanda M. Lawson, MD Contact: Michael Peery
President (312) 217-2260
Joy D. Calloway, MBA, MHSA
Executive Director
