BCMS ALLIANCE
Better Together By Nichole Eckmann, 2021 BCMS Alliance President
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Founded in 1917, the Bexar County Medical Society Alliance has been serving the medical community of San Antonio for over 100 years! BCMSA began as a group of physician spouses sewing surgical gowns, rolling bandages & knitting mufflers for WWI soldiers. We sure have grown as an organization since then! Our members now are physician spouses with various skills and passions, who are also dedicated to their families and supportive of the physician’s rigorous schedule and frequent absenteeism from the household. The organization has evolved from spouses being home taking care of the family 100% of the time to being business owners and professionals, putting equal amounts of work into their careers, a balancing act that is often challenging. When I first joined this organization around 4 years ago, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I was newly married to my husband Dr. Maxim Eckmann, and I had no idea what it was like to live the medical life. I was adapting to that and to our new blended family of 6 boys! I had moved to San Antonio about a year before we were married and I didn’t have many friends. I was looking for a supportive group with like-minded individuals who could give me pointers on juggling this life and who understood the complexities of being married to medicine. I was at a birthday party one day and the wife of one of my husband’s co-workers, Dr. Lori Boies, asked me if I knew about the Bexar County Medical Society Alliance. I said no I did not, but I was interested in hearing more about it. She did a great job of explaining what the Alliance was all about, and when I left that birthday party, I told my husband I was really going to think more about joining, because I felt it was important for me to meet new people. A few weeks later I joined the organization, and I was welcomed with open arms. I quickly made friends that I still have today, and I had an instant support system. So why do I spend my time sitting on boards like the BCMSA with my often-crazy schedule of making breakfast for 6 kids every morning, taking time for exercise, managing a real estate business, keeping up with school functions and trying to make dinner every night? The answer is simple: camaraderie and a way to give back to the community. The medical life is one of a kind, one that you don’t understand unless you are living it. When I attend a board meeting or an event, I always connect with a member that “just gets it.” As President this year, that is, in a nutshell, what I’m hoping to achieve with my amazing Board in 2021. I want us to continue to make connections with other physician spouses and welcome them with open arms into this supportive group the way I was welcomed four years ago. Although times are challenging and have been a bit uncertain, we as an organization can be there for one another and continue to work together to give back to the community. Danielle did a fantastic job in 2020 keeping the organization moving forward despite the fact we have not been able to have in-person events or meetings since March. We, as an organization, realized that the best way to deal with the uncertainty and worry was to continue to do what we do best — reach out to the community and give back. We continued to meet and create ideas for reaching out to our members and the community while setting an example of masking and social distancing. One example of this has been working with The Mitchell Chang Foundation to provide masks to low-income families and health care workers, specifically families in zip codes with the highest COVID-19 rates and economic need. For decades we’ve provided scholarships for students pursuing healthcare careers. Our Scholarship Committee met virtually this past Spring, awarding 5 allied health scholarships and we established two new medical student scholarships. In March, BCMSA created a “we come to you” PPE Drive with volunteers spanning the county to pick up donations in their area of town. Nearly 2,000 items of personal protective equipment were collected and donated to the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio whose physicians and other medical team members staff our county hospital. The goal is to continue creating ideas in 2021 that will allow us to stay connected with each other as members and with our community as well. If anything, the truth is we ARE better together! Thanks so much to my presidential advisors and friends Dr. Lori Boies, Jenny Shepherd, Jennifer Lewis and past President Danielle Henkes for your continued support, and to my husband Dr. Maxim Eckmann for always bringing out the best in me and encouraging me to continue to fulfill my goals in life even if they sometimes seem out of reach. If anything, 2020 has shown us that if we stay connected, even if it is virtually, we can get through this! So, here is to 2021 and adapting to the unexpected!
SAN ANTONIO MEDICINE • February 2021
