Dr. David E. Garza elected to TOMA Board of Trustees

AUSTIN - Laredo family physician David E. Garza, D.O., has been elected to fill a two-year unexpired term on the Board of Trustees of the Texas Osteopathic Medical Association (TOMA). The Board of Trustees is the administrative and executive body of the association. Dr. Garza formally took office during the recent 106th Annual TOMA Convention & Scientific Seminar in Austin .

Certified in both family practice and osteopathic manipulative medicine, Garza maintains a practice in Laredo . He has served as president of the Healthcare Alliance of Laredo IPA, and chief of staff at Doctors Hospital of Laredo, where he currently serves as chairman of the Board of Trustees. He also serves as a clinical associate professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth/Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (TCOM), on the TCOM Alumni Association Board of Trustees, and has been a member of the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners since 1999.

Garza is active in the Texas Society of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians as former vice-president and current chair of the Governmental Relations Committee. An active TOMA member, he has served on the Ethics Committee and is the president of his divisional society, TOMA District 19. He earned his D.O. degree in 1989 from Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Worth. He interned at Osteopathic Medical Center of Texas and completed a family practice residency at Memorial Medical Center in Corpus Christi . His wife of 19 years, Linda Kazen Garza, was elected at the same meeting to the position of president-elect for the Advocates to the Texas Osteopathic Medical Association. The Garzas have two sons, Joseph, 15, and Nicholas, 10.

Approximately 600 osteopathic physicians, their spouses, and exhibitors attended the convention, during which Kenneth. S. Bayles, D.O., a Dallas orthopedic surgeon, was installed as TOMA president for 2005-2006. Honored guest speakers during the convention included U.S. Congressmen Pete Sessions of Dallas and John Carter of Round Rock, and American Osteopathic Association president-elect Phillip Shettle, D.O., of Florida .

Founded in 1900, the Texas Osteopathic Medical Association, headquartered in the historic Bartholomew-Robinson Building in Austin , is the statewide organization serving Texas ' osteopathic physicians who, in turn, serve the health care needs of Texas citizens.

The mission of the Texas Osteopathic Medical Association is to promote health care excellence for the people of Texas; to advance the philosophy and principles of osteopathic medicine; and to loyally embrace the family of the osteopathic profession and serve their unique needs.