Gingrich Urges Family Physicians to Look to the Future

The rapid pace of science and technology promises to change the face of medicine and the way family physicians practice medicine in the next 25 years, said former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich during opening ceremonies for AAFP’s Scientific Assembly on Sept. 28.

There are more scientists now with more resources at their fingertips than at all points in history combined, and that means new technologies and new treatments will come faster than anyone now can conceive, he said.

“You are talking about an amazing volume of new information pouring into the system every year,” he said. Scientific discoveries will require technological solutions that allow physicians to access the latest findings 24 hours a day, seven days a week, online and on demand, as medical learning becomes a nonstop process.

The 17 years that the Institute of Medicine found it takes for research findings to make their way into the practice of medicine will no longer be acceptable. Best practices will change so fast they will force a paradigm shift, he said.

“What we will have is better practices, which are rapidly succeeded by even better practices, which are then succeeded by better-better practices,” said Gingrich.

It is not only physicians who will have to make the transition in response to expected revolutions in science. With a changing understanding of how lifestyle affects health, patients will have to take greater responsibility for preventing their own illnesses.

“We have to design a new standard of 21st century citizenship which holds people accountable for their own behaviors,” he said, adding that schools can play an important role in a national effort to avert epidemics such as obesity in children and teens.

The way medical services are paid for also will have to change. Family physicians offer cost-effective care, and the payment system should recognize that fact while taking into account the resources physicians need to work efficiently, Gingrich said.

Physicians should be compensated appropriately for providing family-oriented care within teams, he said. Furthermore, the teams should be designed to provide ongoing care and not just acute care, to which the current system is fundamentally oriented. No one has figured out how to make that switch yet, said Gingrich, encouraging the audience and the Academy to be actively involved in the discussion.

And in what is hopefully the not the too-distant future, Congress will need to pass medical liability reform, which several states have already succeeded in doing, said Gingrich. “There is an enormous opportunity to return the practice of medicine to a balanced relationship with trial lawyers. Which means more doctors and fewer lawyers.” However, it will be a fight, he warned.

“When you start limiting the number of lawsuits or capping the amount of money, you are threatening every trial lawyer who dreams of buying a Gulfstream Five,” he quipped. “But even though I am a conservative, I do have compassion. I would be prepared to support a federal training program for unemployed lawyers if the reforms go through.”