As Executive Vice President of the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM), Dr. Baxley leads all aspects of ABFM activity that relate to the experience of board-certified family physicians with the ABFM, including residency, the early clinical years, credentials, and communications.

Dr. Baxley previously served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Family Medicine at the Brody School of Medicine (SOM) at East Carolina University from 2012-2018. In that role, she led a pioneering curriculum redesign with an emphasis on integration of training in health system science competencies: patient safety, quality improvement, population health, and interprofessional education. Brody was one of 11 medical schools nationally to be selected by the AMA in its Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative. Prior to that she spent 18 years at the University of South Carolina (USC) School of Medicine, serving as Family Medicine Residency Director, Director of Faculty Development, and Chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. Her work has focused heavily on health care delivery system redesign and teaching about patient safety and quality improvement. A faculty advisor for Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Open School chapters at both USC and Brody SOM, she is also one of the co-founders of the I3 Collaborative, which has led residency practice redesign in primary care teaching practices across South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia since 2005.

Dr. Baxley has an outstanding track record of leadership in Family Medicine, having taught and provided full scope family medicine throughout the greater part of her 31-year career. In addition to her roles as a prior board member and board chair of the American Academy of Family Physician’s (AAFP) Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics (ALSO®) and service on the AAFP’s Residency Assistance Program Panel of Consultants, she served on the ABFM Board of Directors from 2013-2018. During her tenure on the board, she served on the certification, credentials, examination, and research and development committees, the latter of which she chaired. She became a member of the executive committee in 2016 after her election as Chair Elect and finished her final year on the board of directors as the Board Chair. 

Dr. Baxley has been honored with many distinctions, including the American Academy of Family Physicians Exemplary Teaching Award and the James Halford Award for Leadership in Humane Education. In 2017 she was recognized by East Carolina University with a Woman of Distinction Award, and in 2016 and 2018 received the American Medical Women’s Association Gender Equity Award from medical students at Brody SOM.

A graduate of Clemson University, Dr. Baxley received a Doctor of Medicine from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. She completed a family medicine residency at Anderson Family Practice Residency in South Carolina followed by the Faculty Development Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Baxley is married to Ed Baxley, a retired veterinarian who now is a hobby beekeeper. They have two adult children. Daughter Carrie and her wife, Kisha, live in Hampton, Virginia where Carrie works at NASA. Son James, and daughter-in-law Holly, live in upstate South Carolina, where he is Head of Product Development for Meteor Development Group, a San Francisco-based IT company, and she is a nurse. They have two beautiful grandchildren, James and Madeleine, with whom they cherish spending time with. Dr. Baxley and her husband enjoy cycling, travel, watersports, gardening and anything that has to do with Clemson University!