 Oct. 18, 2002 |
| ASSEMBLY EDITION • SAN DIEGO |
Family physicians peppered AAFP leaders with questions and comments Wednesday at the town hall meeting on the Future of Family Medicine project. The project, begun in 2000 by seven family practice organizations, aims to develop a strategy to transform and renew the specialty.
 "It's exciting to hear the energy in this room!" says resident Jay Lee, M.D., at a meeting on the Future of Family Medicine project. |
"We want to make it joy again to practice family medicine," said AAFP President-elect James Martin, M.D., of San Antonio. "Still trying to do my coding at 8:30 at night is not joy."
He boiled down the project's questions to three: What's the role of the family doctor today? What can we do different in the future to meet the needs of people and society? How do we grow the discipline?
Martin breezed through early survey results, mining focus group discussions and partial data from more than 1,000 interviews with, for example, family physicians, general internists, subspecialists, third-party payers and patients.
"Contrary to most family physicians' beliefs, most subspecialists believe in the importance of family practice," Martin said.
Another result: Seventy-four percent of the general population surveyed said they were extremely or very familiar with family physicians' work. Only 32 percent said they were that familiar with internists' work.
"There's strong correlation between what family physicians do and what patients want," said Martin. "The survey data indicate that if you have a real serious problem, internal medicine might be better. But if you have a bunch of serious problems, see a family doctor."
"I can outdo the endocrinologists with my data," said Linda Stogner, M.D., of Estancia, N.M. "Our clinic maintains a diabetic patient registry, and I can pull up aggregate data at any moment for the hemoglobin A1c, blood pressure and lipid levels for our 130 diabetic patients. I know if I'm making a difference in the HgA1c in my community."
"You go, girl!" said Board Chair Richard Roberts, M.D., J.D., of Madison, Wis. "You're going to teach us how to do this!"
Five FFM task forces will analyze the survey results and study the value of the specialty's core values in a changing environment: continuity, comprehensiveness, being patients' first contact in the health care system, and caring for patients in the context of family and community.
Resident Jay Lee, M.D., of Long Beach, Calif., commented, "The core attributes you're talking about -- they're why I went to medical school, but I didn't hear about them in medical school. I fell on them accidentally, at meetings with student leaders from other parts of the country. There needs to be more outreach to medical students."
AAFP President Warren Jones, M.D., of Ridgeland, Miss., replied, "Ssssh! Don't tell anyone we're here! We're America's best-kept secret! In our residencies, we're building total-potential cells -- you can go into a rural area or a city and do the work. We've got to come up with ways to make some changes and also address financial issues for our family doctors."
Check FFM's Web site -- http://www.futurefamilymed.org -- for updates and submit comments starting next spring.
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Copyright © 2002 by
American Academy of Family Physicians.