Meet Alan Magill, our ISTM President-elect

Karl Neumann, MD, FAAP

Alan Magill is a long-term ISTM member with stellar credentials in the research, practice and administration of both travel and tropical medicine, and an expert in malaria. But he cannot really be introduced to our Society members with the usual "he needs no introduction," a fact that he considers to be a positive attribute, and one that he hopes will help define his term in office.

Alan is not one of the founders of the ISTM, has held no previous elective office in the Society, has chaired no permanent committee and, until now, has never attended an executive board meeting. "All true, and, hopefully, some of the reasons why I will be an effective president," says Alan. "I am an bit of an `outsider,' and therefore especially honored to be heading an incredibly effective organization that has built a solid reputation in a relatively short period of time. Our Society is very fortunate in having a core of intelligent, hard-working, foresighted people and a loyal and dedicated membership, and together they have achieved solid accomplishments and have earned well- deserved visibility."

But, in fact, to the ISTM members who do know him, the very adjectives he uses to describe the leadership of the ISTM - intelligent, hard-working, foresighted, loyal and dedicated - also describe Alan.

His scientific and administrative qualifications to lead the ISTM do speak for themselves. Board-certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases. Seventeen years spent in developing new generations of vaccines, diagnostics, and anti-malarial drugs, some of that time living and doing research in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, much of it involving malaria and leishmaniasis. Two years serving as Head of Clinical Research of the Malaria Vaccine Development Unit of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Currently he is the Director of the Division of Experimental Therapeutics at the U.S. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and has dual academic appointments as Associate Professor of Medicine and Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS).

Alan has been and continues to be a sought-after speaker on travel medicine-related topics and participant in numerous national and international advisory committees and workshops. He is an active member of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, has served as their CME Courses Director and is the President-Elect of their Clinical Group. He is the co-editor of the 9^th edition of Hunter's Tropical Medicine and has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications, 80 abstracts, and 10 book chapters. He has been a member of the ISTM since 1992, serving as the Associate Chair of the Scientific Program Committee at CISTM9 (2005) in Lisbon and at CISTM10, (2007) in Vancouver. He remains clinically active in both pre- and post-travel settings.

And although Alan will not assume his office as President for another two years - at CISTM11 in Budapest in 2009 - he has already formulated his vision for ISTM, a vision he will fine-tune from his perch as President-elect working with Frank von Sonnenburg, the current ISTM President: The ISTM will continue to evolve into an ever more important society. Biennial meetings, the Journal of Travel Medicine, the Certification Examination (CTH), the website and the listserv are bringing a higher standard of both pre-travel and post-travel care to a wider audience. His specific goals for the Society include:

• Being a leader in understanding and bridging the differences across national and international borders with respect to conflicting regulatory requirements, practice guidelines, and society recommendations for travel-related vaccines and anti-malarial prophylaxis recommendations. A useful role for the ISTM would be to provide a professional and neutral environment where thought leaders can meet and discuss differences and work for evidence based standards where possible, and explain these differences using a web-based format.
• Continuing to improve the biennial meeting with ever higher quality sessions. Support cutting edge patient-focused research efforts with reporting of those results at the ISTM conference in addition to the well-received state-of-the art practice sessions currently in the program. The bienniel meeting should be "the place to be" for travel medicine professionals from around the world.
• Continuing to emphasize inclusiveness of all groups who practice and have an interest in travel medicine including nurse practitioners, nurses, physician assistants, and physicians. Activities and settings that foster a "big tent" philosophy should be a priority.
• Being a vocal advocate to clearly define and communicate the needs of travel medicine practitioners to the major pharmaceutical companies that provide the major travel medicine related products we all use. We must remain independent and avoid real and perceived conflicts of interest. The next generation of anti-malarial chemoprophylaxis and travel vaccines will require our vigorous advocacy.
• Working with other groups that share similar interests; lead from the front, and even consider a more activist role in identifying and prompting needed changes. As we all agree, the world of travel medicine includes more than the traditional view of the short-term Western traveller on holiday. Other groups such as displaced persons, expatriates and other long-stay groups continue to have needs that exceed our current capability to address fully. The impact of tourism on the environment and the destination populations, the darker side of sex-related travel and its exploitive impacts, and the unregulated business of medical service-oriented travel are new challenges for the coming decade.
• Providing strong support for a vigorous service, educational and research committee structure with consideration of beginning an ISTM publications arm to generate the resources needed to optimize the practice of travel medicine.
• Promoting the needs of and be attuned to the business realities of our membership. Identify ways to improve travel health advocacy to increase the numbers of travelers referred to travel medicine practitioners.
• Growing the Certificate of Travelers Health as a recognized international standard for the practice of travel medicine.

What does Alan do in his spare time (What spare time?) "I am (or at least was) an avid outdoorsman, especially enjoying skiing and mountaineering. "I have climbed on all continents except Antarctica. I have summited Mt. McKinley, Mt. Blanc and other European Alps, Huascaran and Huantsan in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya in East Africa, and peaks in Tibet, New Zealand, the Canadian Rockies, the American West and elsewhere."

Alan was born in Craig, Colorado, USA, and grew up in southwest Wyoming in sparsely populated oil camps. He completed secondary and undergraduate school while living in Texas, went to graduate school in Rhode Island with a masters degree in evolutionary biology and then on to medical school at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He joined the Army with his wife on graduation and completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine in Honolulu, Hawaii (tough duty!). He spent 3 years in Germany as a practicing internist before returing to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC to begin an infectious disease fellowship.

Alan has been married for 23 years to Janine Babcock, also a U.S. Army medical corps officer. Her specialty is pediatric hematology/oncology. She is currently the Division Director for regulated activities at Walter Reed. They have two daughters: Lara, age 16, and Sarah, age 13. "Both are great students, gymnasts, and love riding horses." Non-professional interests at this point are "surviving two beautiful teenage daughters and getting them through college!!!"