FP Report -- May 1999
AAFP supports renewed interest in National Primary Care Week
A new initiative by the American Medical Student Association hopes to revitalize National Primary Care Week and increase student interest in primary care professions.
U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., has announced that AMSA and the Health Resources and Services Administration are revitalizing the observance, which will take place this year from Sept. 27 to Oct. 2.
The effort will focus on increasing the number of primary care doctors, as well as encouraging them to practice in America's underserved communities, improve health care by using an interdisciplinary approach, and build partnerships between communities and health professional students.
Travis Harker, a medical student on hiatus to work as AMSA's legislative affairs director for a year, will direct National Primary Care Week. Harker, who is between his second and third year at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health in Columbus, plans to pursue a career in family practice.
What does he hope to accomplish with National Primary Care Week? "I'd like to see a better understanding of primary care and for people to realize its value," he said. "It's not simply the delivery of services to patients who walk through your office door, but it involves community outreach, public health and health policy."
The Academy served on the National Primary Care Day Steering Committee for several years until the program was discontinued in December 1997.
"Primary care is still counterculture in America," said Norman Kahn, M.D., AAFP vice president for education and science. "There are more subspecialty physicians, practicing outstanding medicine, than at any time in history. But there are more health professions shortage areas, more underserved communities and more families without a physician, in both rural and urban areas."
Within the next month, AMSA will have a National Primary Care Week planner's kit with information to help students coordinate the effort at their schools. It will include tips on fund-raising, dealing with the media and promoting primary care. To order the kit, contact Harker by e-mail at lad@www.amsa.org or by phone at (703) 620-6600, Ext. 211.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1999 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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