‘Doers do’: New AAFP president encourages members to act

Editor’s Note: Kisha Davis, MD, MPH, FAAFP, of Maryland was installed as AAFP president shortly before the Congress of Delegates adjourned Oct. 21 in Nashville, Tennessee. A few hours later, thousands of family physicians watched her introduction video in the first mainstage event of the Family Medicine Experience and she addressed her peers with these words:

Good afternoon to my family medicine family... hello, FMX!

After watching that video, you now know much more about me.

But there is one person I want you to know a little more about: my grandmother.

Ida Pearl Green.

She died last year, just two months shy of her 107th birthday. And she taught me more about leadership than any book, course, boardroom or title ever could.

And as I step into this next chapter of leadership, I keep coming back to the lessons she taught me. I call them my Grandma Pearls.

In 1958, my grandmother became the first Black Avon lady in our county.

Avon limited her territory to the Black neighborhoods. But Grandma kept winning the President's Award for being a top seller. So eventually, people complained. They figured she had to be selling outside her territory because there was no way she was being that successful just selling to Black people. And Grandma’s response was simple: “Black women want to look beautiful, too.”

That was Grandma. No long argument. No fuss. She knew her worth. And she knew the worth of the women she served.

Everybody deserves care with dignity

Grandma understood something that family physicians understand, too: Every person deserves to be seen, valued and cared for with dignity. I see it when I'm caring for uninsured patients on our county’s mobile health van. People who may feel forgotten by the health care system. But not by us.

And when Grandma went to those monthly Avon meetings, she did something else I've never forgotten. She sat right up front. Because she belonged there. And she knew it. I wish I could tell you I've always had that same assurance.

I haven't.

There have been plenty of times in my leadership journey when I've walked into a room already looking for the comfortable seat somewhere in the back. Maybe some of you know that feeling. You've been invited into the room... but there's still that little voice asking: Are you sure they meant you?

I've learned that sometimes the person you have to convince that you belong isn't sitting across the table. It's the person staring back at you in the mirror.

And frankly, family medicine needs us to get past that. Because decisions are being made every day about our patients, our practices, our communities and our futures. And family physicians need to be in those rooms. Who knows better about how to care for patients in the context of their life, their family, their community? We are comfortable in the exam room, but we must also be comfortable at the board table, in the halls of leadership and helping make the hard decision.

So when you see the opportunity or the need, be brave. Be bold. Move to the front of the room. Not because you want to be important, but because the work is important.

Claim your seat at the table because you belong.

Find a need and do something about it

I didn't get involved in the AAFP because I had some grand plan to become president. There was no vision board in medical school with “AAFP President” pasted across the top.

I got involved because I saw something that needed to be done, and I thought I could help. Then somebody encouraged me to do something else. And then something else. And somewhere along the way, I learned service has a funny way of propelling you forward

Because once you see a problem, service asks a very simple question: What are you going to do about it?

Serving the patient in front of you

One of the people who taught me that was my patient Carl. Carl first came to see me the day after his father died. He had just gotten Medicaid. He had already waited three months for this appointment. So he wasn't about to reschedule.

His blood pressure was dangerously high. His cataracts were so severe that he was nearly blind. But he couldn't have that surgery until we got that blood pressure under control.

So, we did. We controlled his blood pressure. We found him a good ophthalmologist. When his eye medicine needed prior authorization and the eye doctor wouldn’t do it, I called it in from vacation. When he didn't have a ride to surgery, I called his church and found him one. Because that was what Carl needed from his family doctor.

But then Congress started debating Medicaid cuts that could threaten the coverage that made all of that possible.

And suddenly, what Carl needed from me changed. At first, being his doctor meant helping him navigate the health system. Later, it meant helping the health system understand him.

So I took him to Capitol Hill. Because Medicaid wasn't just a line in a federal budget anymore. It was Carl. His eyesight. His blood pressure. His ability to get care.

Sometimes service happens in the exam room.

And sometimes serving the patient in front of you means walking into a completely different room. Because that is what “doers do!”

That phrase goes back generations.

Family physicians don’t look away

Just a few years after the Civil War, my great-great-grandfather, newly emancipated from slavery, joined two other Black men to buy land and build a church and schoolhouse where Black children could be educated.

Generations later, my brother asked our grandmother why he would do something like that in such contentious times.

Her answer? “He was a doer. And doers do.” That became our family motto. And I've come to realize that doers aren't people who have all the answers. They're people who see something that needs to be done and decide not to look away.

That sounds a lot like family medicine to me. We see the patient who needs help. We see the student who needs somebody to believe in them. We see the policy that isn't working. And then we have a choice.

We can watch. Or we can do.

Family medicine has never moved forward because someone else showed up. It moved forward because doers showed up.

My grandmother wasn't loud. She didn't yell. She didn't need to make a fuss. But you knew when Grandma was in the room. She had presence. And when she spoke, people listened.

That has shaped the kind of leader I try to be. Because leadership isn't always the loudest person in the room. I've seen family physicians change policy with one testimony, change a student's career with one conversation and change a patient's life with one question.

And sometimes it's simply showing up. And sitting in the front row. Again. And again. And again.

You don't have to wait for a title to lead. You don't have to be louder. You just have to be willing to use the voice you have.

And that's what I want to leave you with today.

Family medicine is a team sport. And right now we need everybody in the game. Our patients need us. Our communities need us. The specialty of family medicine needs us. We know the power of having a family physician who really knows you. Someone who knows the diabetes and the depression. The medical history and the story behind it. Someone who sees the person, not just the diagnosis.

And if we believe every person deserves that kind of care, then we can't wait for somebody else to build the system that makes it possible.

We have to help build it.

Now, I'm not asking everyone in this room to do everything. Please don't.

We are also working on physician well-being.

But I am asking you to do something. Mentor one student. Encourage one resident. Make one call to your member of Congress. Say yes to one opportunity you would normally talk yourself out of. Just do one thing.

Because imagine what happens when 4,900 family physicians—that’s how many are gathered in Nashville this week—each decides to do one thing. That's not just participation. That's power.

I think about Grandma sitting in that front row.

Grandma believed every person had worth.

She believed you belonged in the room. And she knew that sometimes your presence is loud enough.

She believed service wasn’t a position. It was a responsibility.

And she believed that when something needs to be done, doers do.

Family medicine has always been a specialty of doers.

So let’s do it.

I am Dr. Kisha Davis, and I am so proud to be your 79th president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.