The Academy's Robert Graham Center in Washington has named its internship program the Larry A. Green Visiting Scholars Program in honor of the person who dreamed up the internships.
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Graham Center Names Scholars' Program for Larry Green, M.D.
By Jane Stoever
Larry Green, M.D., chats with participants during the luncheon at which the Graham Center's internship program became the Larry A. Green Visiting Scholar Program.
Larry Green, M.D., the center's founding director, is scholar-in-residence at the center and program director of Prescription for Health in the family medicine department of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Aurora.
"Among the founding purposes of the Graham Center was Larry's vision, the desire to seed the discipline of family medicine -- and primary care -- with young people infected with a passion for doing research, using evidence to influence policy, or both," said Robert Phillips, M.D., M.S.P.H., director of the center. "That vision has been realized in great part through the internship program," he added, noting that the interns (now called visiting scholars) have to their credit more than 40 projects with the center.
Phillips renamed the 7-year-old program Sept. 30 in Washington during a luncheon to welcome new members of the Pisacano Scholars Leadership Program, which is sponsored by the Pisacano Leadership Foundation of the American Board of Family Medicine.
The Graham Center's program is "a tailored, mentored experience that permits from four to six weeks of on-site research, writing and experiential learning bounded by the guiding themes of the center and steeped in the Washington, D.C., policy arena," said Phillips.
"Many of us connected to the Graham Center through the Pisacano program," said FP Jennifer DeVoe, M.D., M.Phil., a 1998 Pisacano scholar and assistant professor in the family medicine department at Oregon Health & Science University, Portland. Ten of the 51 Graham Center interns have been Pisacano scholars, and the Pisacano program recently allotted funds to cover travel and housing for its new scholars to serve as visiting scholars at the center.
When the Graham Center was taking shape on an AAFP drawing board in early 1999, Green, already selected as the center's executive director, asked for funding for interns. "The Academy did not want this internship in the budget. They (members of the AAFP Board of Directors) thought it was a ridiculous idea for a program that did not yet exist to take in interns," said Green in a recent interview. "I'm grateful to the Academy for agreeing to launch the internship from the beginning."
Green explained that, during the early years of this decade, the internship cost the Academy about $25,000 a year, the rent for a small D.C. apartment. "We ask the interns to come and work their rear ends off for a month, we don't pay them anything, and we expect them to work for us the rest of their lives," he said. Phillips and Andrew Bazemore, M.D., M.P.H., the center's assistant director, were both interns, he added.
What difference does the internship make to participants who cycle through the center? Green noted three things:
"Among the founding purposes of the Graham Center was Larry's vision, the desire to seed the discipline of family medicine -- and primary care -- with young people infected with a passion for doing research, using evidence to influence policy, or both," said Robert Phillips, M.D., M.S.P.H., director of the center. "That vision has been realized in great part through the internship program," he added, noting that the interns (now called visiting scholars) have to their credit more than 40 projects with the center.
Phillips renamed the 7-year-old program Sept. 30 in Washington during a luncheon to welcome new members of the Pisacano Scholars Leadership Program, which is sponsored by the Pisacano Leadership Foundation of the American Board of Family Medicine.
The Graham Center's program is "a tailored, mentored experience that permits from four to six weeks of on-site research, writing and experiential learning bounded by the guiding themes of the center and steeped in the Washington, D.C., policy arena," said Phillips.
"Many of us connected to the Graham Center through the Pisacano program," said FP Jennifer DeVoe, M.D., M.Phil., a 1998 Pisacano scholar and assistant professor in the family medicine department at Oregon Health & Science University, Portland. Ten of the 51 Graham Center interns have been Pisacano scholars, and the Pisacano program recently allotted funds to cover travel and housing for its new scholars to serve as visiting scholars at the center.
When the Graham Center was taking shape on an AAFP drawing board in early 1999, Green, already selected as the center's executive director, asked for funding for interns. "The Academy did not want this internship in the budget. They (members of the AAFP Board of Directors) thought it was a ridiculous idea for a program that did not yet exist to take in interns," said Green in a recent interview. "I'm grateful to the Academy for agreeing to launch the internship from the beginning."
Green explained that, during the early years of this decade, the internship cost the Academy about $25,000 a year, the rent for a small D.C. apartment. "We ask the interns to come and work their rear ends off for a month, we don't pay them anything, and we expect them to work for us the rest of their lives," he said. Phillips and Andrew Bazemore, M.D., M.P.H., the center's assistant director, were both interns, he added.
What difference does the internship make to participants who cycle through the center? Green noted three things:
- The interns "get a biopsy of what it's like to try to bring evidence to bear on policy."
- The interns help create a product -- a paper, a one-page research document or another statement -- that becomes part of the evidence base for family medicine and primary care.
- The interns become part of a community of primary care researchers and policy analysts who "continue to share with one another and encourage one another."
"They are an absolute inspiration to me," Green said. "The interns are an antidote to pessimism about the future of family medicine and primary care."
Medical students, primary care residents and fellows who are interested in the Larry A. Green Visiting Scholar Program should contact Bazemore at (202) 331-3360.
Medical students, primary care residents and fellows who are interested in the Larry A. Green Visiting Scholar Program should contact Bazemore at (202) 331-3360.
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