Rosemarie Sweeney, vice president for public policy and practice support at the American Academy of Family Physicians, is responsible for overseeing the Academy’s government relations and policy center activities in Washington D.C. and the research and information services and practice support activities at the organization’s headquarters in Leawood, Kansas. She was instrumental in the development of The Robert Graham Center: Policy Studies in Family Practice and Primary Care.

In 1979, Sweeney joined the AAFP’s Washington office as director of government relations, a position she held until 1992 when she was promoted to vice president. Before joining the Academy she was a staff associate for federal agency affairs at the American Osteopathic Association. She subsequently was appointed an assistant project director to administer a grant from the (then) Department of Health, Education and Welfare to develop the Professional Standards Review Organization’s screening criteria, and then served as a government affairs representative. From 1971 to 1974, Sweeney served on the professional staff of U.S. Representative Margaret Heckler (R-Massachusetts).

Sweeney is a member of several professional associations, including Women in Government Relations and the American Association of Medical Society Executives. She currently serves on the Advisory Panel on Medicare Education for the Department of Health and Human Services. She has served on the advisory committee of the family medicine division at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and the board of directors of the Westmoreland Children’s Center and currently serves on the board of trustees of Washington Episcopal School, both in Bethesda, Maryland.

Sweeney is listed in the first edition of Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare and in the 1993 edition of Who’s Who of American Women. In 1991, she received the Maryland Governor’s Victim Assistance Award for her work as a volunteer counselor with the Montgomery County Sexual Assault Service. She earned her undergraduate degree in political science and her Master’s of Public Administration from American University in Washington, D.C.