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FP Report -- March 1997

PBS special on family doctors: Coming soon to your neighborhood?

Your local Public Broadcasting Service station may need a nudge from you before it will show a new hour-long special on family practice.

The program, Family Doctor ... at the Heart of Medicine, premiered at a national PBS conference in Atlanta last fall, and 74 local PBS stations already plan to air it. Your station may have it scheduled--or may not even know it exists.

A few clips from the show, to spark your interest:

• Steven Rothschild, MD, of the family medicine department at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago, says other specialists have criticized him as a jack of all trades and master of none. "But I know that patient a lot better than they do," he insists. In a segment on home care, he suggests the hospital is not a very good place to die. He adds, "In order to have people have comfortable deaths at home, somebody has to go out and see them, and one of those people is a doctor ... and that's one of the things I do."
• Fred Richardson Jr., MD, assistant professor of family medicine and assistant dean of minority affairs at Rush Medical College in Chicago, explains the importance of understanding patients' personal lives--for example, whether they can afford prescriptions, prepare healthy meals, and make dental appointments.
• Family practice involves emotional support, including care of the worried well, says Mary Joyce, MD, of Claremont, NH. The emotional interaction is often two-way, she notes: "I get told every day what a great doctor I am. The personal rewards are tremendous."

The program also features family physician Ronald Sroka, MD, of Crofton, MD, and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, MD. The Academy called the FPs to see if they would like to be interviewed for the program, and it was developed independently.

When you contact your local PBS station, ask for the program manager or viewer services coordinator. See whether they've already scheduled Family Doctor ... at the Heart of Medicine. It's being offered free of charge through Connecticut Public Television (CPTV) for four showings anytime after April 1; the distributor is American Program Service. Glaxo Wellcome funded the program and provided partial funding for an upbeat 15-minute video composed of footage from the PBS show.

The 15-minute video, Family Practice ... a Specialty for Our Time, is available from the AAFP for you to show to community groups and medical students. You may borrow it by calling Pat Fields in the AAFP Communications Division at (800) 274-2237, ext. 4224.

A final suggestion: When you pin down the dates your PBS station will show Family Doctor ... at the Heart of Medicine, let your patients know. They might bring you new questions about the specialty after they watch it!

The PBS show features Fred Richardson Jr., MD,
visiting with a patient.

• FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.