May 2002 • Volume 8 • Number 5 |
To the editor:
|
To the reader Write us a letter of 200 words or fewer (subject to editing). FP Report, 11400 Tomahawk Creek Parkway, Leawood, KS 66211-2672; fax them to (913) 906-6089; call (800) 274-2237, Ext. 5230; or contact fpreport@aafp.org via e-mail. |
I'm writing in regard to the March FP Report article "Future of Family Medicine Project Surges Forward." I serve as chief of minimally invasive surgery and endoscopy at our rural community hospital, and I am physically sickened by the huge discrepancy in the training for, and the actual skills needed by, rural family physicians, both old and new. But no postgraduate surgical training exists for family physicians in America. Everyone -- from physician's assistants and nurse practitioners to general surgeons -- has slowly taken away the tools of our trade.
I would beseech the individuals involved in the Future of Family Medicine project to think outside of the box and seize back the profession of rural family medicine with a vengeance. Don't let another resident go into rural American medicine surgically unprepared. Don't let another day go by without helping train and retrain existing rural physicians struggling to keep their community hospitals afloat. Don't allow another minute to go by where other specialties not only look down on family physicians in rural practice, but also have the audacity to tell us we can't perform the very procedures we need to exist. Please -- don't give away our profession.
Andrew Jones, D.O.
Cottonwood, Idaho
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