October 2000 • Post-Assembly Edition • Dallas
Support a research journal, delegates decide
Financial constraints -- will they stop the presses for family practice research journals?
Fear of just that led eight chapters and a commission to tell the AAFP Congress of Delegates they want the Academy to support a journal for original clinical research in family practice.
New policy: "The AAFP will take a leadership role to assure the existence of at least one journal that publishes original family practice research." "The definition of a discipline is that it must have a body of knowledge," said Stephen Spann, M.D., of Houston, chair of the AAFP's Task Force to Enhance Family Practice Research.
"Our journals are in peril," Spann told a reference committee. "Much of the difficulty has to do with stresses on pharmaceutical companies, fewer dollars available for ads in research journals."
The Congress adopted this policy from the Commission on Clinical Policies and Research report: "The AAFP will take a leadership role to assure the existence of at least one journal that publishes original family practice research."
AAFP Executive Vice President Douglas Henley, M.D., said, "We're in the third year of our five-year, $7.7 million initiative to boost family practice research. We've begun our national network of practice-based researchers. We anticipate more researchers, more manuscripts, more high-quality publications. The Board of Directors is committed to ensuring publication of the specialty's research."
A Board report to the Congress said AAFP's financial investment in the research initiative has already had tangible results.
"We're poised on the end of the diving board," said Director Charles Driscoll, M.D., of Lynchburg, Va. "Pulling the journals out would be like taking the pool out from under the divers."
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2000 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
FP Report | Headlines |AAFP Home | Search