Pilot Program
In the old days, when family doctors wanted to spread the word that they were setting up shop and ready to meet people's health care needs, they usually hung out a shingle on Main Street.
The Academy is taking the concept one step further in its Doctor on Main Street pilot program, designed to communicate on a grassroots level the role family physicians are playing in America's changing health care system.
In the pilot program, about 400 FPs in five states--California, Arkansas, Kentucky, Iowa, and Maryland--are being prepared to spread the message about family practice to schools, civic groups, churches, and other community audiences.
These FPs receive training in public speaking and use tools such as the Academy's Stand Up and Speak Out! series of kits. At press time, about 72 requests had been made to use the program's participants as speakers.
The "Main Street docs" also will spread awareness about the specialty to medical students. The physicians will participate in National Primary Care Day Oct. 10, a day to educate students about the role generalists play in health care.
The family physicians will talk to family medicine interest groups, and some will show a new video about family practice, created for the Academy's 50th anniversary in 1997 with an educational grant from Glaxo Wellcome Inc.
The Academy is also running ads on Oct. 10 in 27 newspapers in the five states taking part in Doctor on Main Street, encouraging organizations to use these FPs as public speakers.
The Doctor on Main Street pilot program will end in December and will be analyzed by the AAFP Committee on Communications to determine whether the program should be continued in other states.
To learn more about the program, contact Dena Thornton in the AAFP Communications Division by e-mail at dthornton@aafp.org or by phone at (800) 274-2237, ext. 4202.
FP Report, October 1996
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