Dr. Marie-Alberte Boursiquot Recognized for Her Advocacy Work

By Nadia Smith

Past CMA President and long-time member Dr. Marie-Alberte Boursiquot has been awarded the Mary Newman Advocacy Award by the American College of Physicians (ACP) – Maryland Chapter. The award recognizes her longstanding advocacy work on behalf of the ACP and in defense of the patients they serve.

Dr. Boursiquot, a board-certified internist, has a long tenure as a legislative representative testifying against Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS). She has served as the legislative representative to the Maryland State Medical Society (MedChi), participated in advocacy visits to the Capitol Hill to meet with legislators as well as with state legislators to defend the American College of Physicians position against Physician Assisted Suicide. She also serves on the chapter healthcare policy committee defending ACP’s position on PAS. She has been involved with legislative advocacy work in some way ever since she joined the ACP in the mid-90s.

She also advocates for the rights of physicians covering such issues as conscience protections, reasonable wages and reimbursements for medical services. She testified before a congressional panel on Capitol Hill on behalf of the CMA for the Conscience Protection Act of 2016.  The act was passed in a bipartisan vote a month later. She has been a CMA member since the late 1990’s and served as the guild president of the Baltimore Guild for many years, where she was also a founding member.

Dr. Boursiquot is a graduate of New York University and the Howard University College of Medicine. She completed her residency training at the Johns Hopkins/Sinai Hospital program in Internal Medicine. She is a Member of the Maryland Board of Physicians, and was awarded fellowship status in the American College of Physicians in 2007.

Dr. Boursiquot understands why some CMA members have left secular medical societies but believes more Catholic voices are needed in these organizations.

“I’ve earned the respect of others who may vehemently disagree with my positions on issues. Even when I’m outnumbered in my views, my arguments serve to invite my colleagues to reconsider their positions,” she explained. “I would say to those who are hesitant that they have nothing to lose. Silence in the face of the ethical challenges we’re confronted with these days may be misperceived as approbation. Ultimately, we’re accountable to Our Creator and will have to explain how we responded or failed to respond to evil. If I may paraphrase Saint Mother Theresa ‘…we are not called to be successful, we are called to be faithful….’” 

Dr. Tim Millea, the chair for the Health Care Policy Committee, has been inviting members to be a Catholic voice in secular medical societies and he sees Dr. Boursiquot as an example of why this is so important.

“Dr. Boursiquot’s consistent involvement in the secular medicine arena provides a lesson for all of us. Despite the challenges, she has courageously continued to bring the factual truth of moral medicine to those who may never hear it,” he said. “Whether it makes them think twice, or question their own positions, or accept our arguments is up to them. The important factor, as Dr. Boursiquot exemplifies, is that our participation in secular medicine is ultimately an act of evangelism, to which we are all called in our professions.”

CMA congratulates Dr. Marie-Alberte Boursiquot for this well-deserved recognition!

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