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 Jubilation: AAFP President Mary Frank, M.D., the Academy's first woman president, celebrates after receiving the presidential medal from outgoing President Michael Fleming, M.D. |
Embrace the power of one," incoming AAFP President Mary Frank, M.D., of Mill Valley, Calif., invited her family physician colleagues Oct. 15. "I need each and every one of you. I need you to realize -- and to embrace -- the value of ‘the power of one.'"
In her president's address, Frank called on FPs to join her in a quest for change -- change in how patients are treated, change in how FPs are valued, change in how care is delivered throughout the health system.
"My goal is -- in some small way -- to help create a world where all people are treated with fairness, decency and respect," said Frank. "Note that I said ‘all people' -- not just the highly educated, not just the wealthy and upper-middle class, not just people with the same color of skin, the same belief systems, the same hopes and dreams. All people."
"What is fair about a system where nearly 45 million people -- one in six Americans -- don't have access to health care?" Frank asked. In her own Sonoma County, she said, only one surgeon and one ear, nose and throat physician still accept Medicaid patients -- aside from the family doctors.
"And what would common decency say to a country where children begin their precious life without proper nutrition and where every fourth person is denied access to the kind of health care that we all expect for our families?" Frank asked. "What is decent about a community that doesn't have an adequate physician workforce -- where the only care is either miles away or available only through an emergency room?"
Finally, she queried, "Are we respecting our patients -- those with health care coverage and those without? Have we ever changed a treatment plan because an insurance company told us to? Have we ever failed to talk with a patient about all the treatment options? Have we ever ordered a test to buy time, because we were just too frazzled to fully explain a diagnosis or a prognosis?"
Fairness, decency, respect -- these are values family physicians must embrace without reservation, Frank said.
"Throughout the year," Frank said, "I will be working with the Academy and others to strive to bring health care coverage to all -- and to change a system that is neither fair nor just to many people in this country.
"Please join me. Please help me make change happen."
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