Peter J. Koopman, MD, FAAFP
Candidate for director
Personal statement
I am proud of my decades of work as a family medicine doctor.
The breadth of my family medicine experience and my enthusiasm for our specialty's essential importance to improving health care in this country will inform my service on the AAFP Board of Directors. As a former small-town family doctor, former outpatient-only family doctor and current academic family doctor, I will bring value to all discussions and deliberations of the AAFP board and the essential work the organization does to support defending our scope of practice, growing our pipeline and reducing administrative burden. The AAFP is our strongest voice to advocate for the value of our specialty.
My experience in health care delivery and patient care is diverse, even if my personal demographic is not.
Geographically I have lived and practiced for significant parts of my life in the Northeast, the South and the Midwest. I completed my residency training in family medicine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, then began practicing as a family physician in the rural Florida panhandle, then served a suburban community in Charleston, South Carolina, via urgent care and outpatient-only care. Now I’ve served 20 years in the Midwest state of Missouri in Columbia as an academic clinical family physician leader and educator. These unique roles have provided me with a diverse set of perspectives on the different responsibilities and job environments in which a family physician can serve, and have allowed me to give more well-rounded and experienced advice when I work with students and residents. This diversity of my family medicine experiences would be valuable to the AAFP board.
I believe family medicine is key to the sustainability of our health care system.
Overwhelming data exists to support the claim that family medicine and primary care need to be more respected and valued. The issues are broad and interconnected but come down to making our health care system recognize and value the essential importance that family medicine contributes to a functioning, equitable and efficient healthcare system for our country. The AAFP has done great advocacy work to these ends. The AAFP also works to grow the primary care workforce. We need more family doctors in our country who understand and recognize and receive their worth. I am aligned with AAFP’s mission.
I am committed to advocacy for the family medicine profession.
My academic work reinforces my commitment to my advocacy for the importance of the specialty I love every day, and I have also invested deeply in the Missouri Academy of Family Physicians (MAFP) in the last 20 years. I have served on our executive committee and regularly advocate at state and local levels. In my advocacy roles, I prioritize mentoring students and residents in the importance of family medicine and health care advocacy. I feel honored that many of the students and residents I have mentored have gone on to leadership roles within the MAFP and AAFP. I have given over 30 educational presentations at Missouri Academy and national conferences, and many more for residents and students.
Compassionate family physician, innovative family medicine educator, dedicated mentor and fierce legislative advocate for fellow practicing family physicians, Peter Jacob Koopman, MD, FAAFP, is a 1992 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. He completed residency training in family medicine in Pittsburgh in 1996. During the 10 years after residency, he practiced family medicine full-time in Florida and South Carolina in both rural and urban settings before hearing a call to academics. In 2007 he joined the faculty of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and in 2010 he completed a six-month fellowship in teaching and learning at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.
Dr. Koopman is currently a professor of clinical family and community medicine at Mizzou. He maintains an active, busy patient practice in Columbia, Missouri, in a suburban office with 11 other family physicians. He also is an integral part of residency and medical student education, and has been informal and formal mentor to numerous residents and students over the last 20 years. He is co-director of an eight-week course for first-year medical students called “Introduction to Patient-Centered Care,” and has served as the elective director for Mizzou’s family medicine clerkship. He just completed his second three-year term on the Admission Committee for MU’s School of Medicine. He is a former chair of the Admission Committee and currently serves on the Curriculum Committee. He received the Outstanding Clinical Faculty Teaching Award in 2013 and the Outstanding Clerkship Curriculum Innovation Award in 2019 from the MU School of Medicine.
In addition to his academic duties at Mizzou, Dr. Koopman is active in statewide and national family medicine organizations and advocacy for the profession. He currently serves as co-chair of the Missouri Academy of Family Physicians Advocacy Committee, where he has served for seven years. He is past president of the Missouri Academy and serves as one of the two Missouri delegates to the American Academy of Family Physicians Congress of Delegates. He received the MAFP Distinguished Service Award in 2022.
Nationally, he is past chair of the AAFP’s Commission on Federal and State Policy, and regularly travels to Washington, D.C., to advocate for family medicine patients, public health and our country’s commitment to preventive and public health. He is an AAFP delegate to the American Medical Association House of Delegates and the AAFP member on the Academic Family Medicine Advocacy Council. He was named a Fellow of the AAFP in 2014.
Dr. Koopman’s wife, Richelle, is also a family physician and is chair of Mizzou’s Department of Family and Community Medicine. They married in 1990 during medical school. They have two children: Ian, 27, currently living and working as a teacher in Boston; and Katie, 21, an undergraduate student studying animal sciences at Mizzou. Dr. Koopman tries to spend most of his time away from work with his family. He is an enthusiastic fan of all things Disney and loves to play the guitar.
Greetings family medicine colleagues,
I have loved family medicine for more than 30 years. My dedication began in medical school and now inspires my AAFP board candidacy. The specialty in which we are privileged to serve is powerful and deeply impactful. Its core values—patient-centered care, connection, comprehensiveness, coordination, first-contact access and continuity—first shaped my training and continue to guide my work in practice and in teaching students and residents.
Evidence consistently shows that family medicine delivers better patient outcomes, higher satisfaction and lower costs. For meaningful improvement in American health care, family medicine must play a central role. These values are not only foundational, but also transformative. I am committed to grounding discussions in these values, while ensuring that diverse member perspectives are interwoven in decision-making.
I have advocated for family medicine throughout my career and developed skills to represent our specialty effectively. If elected, I will leverage AAFP resources to expand this advocacy. I want to dream forward with hope. While today’s challenges are significant, hope has always defined our specialty and is critical in our current times.
I would be honored to serve as a committed, hopeful dreamer/advocate for family medicine. I respectfully ask for your vote.
Family fun—what could be better!
Explain how your experiences as a family physician would inform your work on behalf of members as a member of the Board?
Family physicians develop leadership skills every day—listening carefully, valuing diverse perspectives and working collaboratively to achieve the best outcomes. I have practiced these skills for over 30 years in both clinical, academic and advocacy settings. I have used my experience and knowledge in these settings while engaging patients, colleagues, students and teams in shared, collaborative decision-making.
My experience across diverse practice environments—including rural, suburban, urban, urgent care, outpatient, inpatient and academic venues—has given me a broad and practical understanding of the challenges and opportunities our members face in the many ways care is provided. This perspective will allow me to contribute thoughtful, well-informed and inclusive input at the Board level.
As a Board member, I will listen actively, seek out multiple viewpoints and collaborate to identify meaningful, actionable strategies and solutions that support AAFP members. My goal is to help advance the work of the Academy in ways that improve the lives of our members, their patients and the communities they serve. My perspective will reflect my work in similar communities and practice settings.
What unique skills and/or experiences do you have that would be valuable to the AAFP membership if you were elected, and why or how would those skills and/or experiences apply to your new role?
I bring extensive leadership experience across organized medicine, academic medicine and national policy work. I have served as chair of the AAFP Commission on Federal and State Policy, president and board chair of the Missouri Academy of Family Physicians, and chaired key University of Missouri committees, including our medical school admission committee. I have also served in multiple leadership roles on AAFP Congress of Delegates reference committees. These roles have given me a deep understanding of governance, policy development and how to move complex issues to action.
My leadership style is consistently described as thoughtful, collaborative and consensus driven. I prioritize listening, building alignment and making practical decisions that reflect the needs of diverse stakeholders—an approach well-suited to Board service.
In addition, my broad clinical and academic experience informs my perspective. I have practiced in rural, urgent care, inpatient, suburban and underserved settings, and I actively instruct students and residents. This range allows me to bring a grounded, real-world understanding of the full scope of family medicine to Board discussions and decisions, ensuring they remain relevant to the physicians we serve.
I will use these experiences to help the AAFP anticipate and respond to the evolving challenges facing family medicine—strengthening advocacy, supporting a sustainable and diverse workforce and ensuring that family physicians can continue to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care in every community.
Promoting the value of AAFP membership is an important leadership responsibility. If you were speaking to non-members, what are the top three things the AAFP has done or is doing well that you would highlight, and why?
I would highlight three areas where the AAFP delivers exceptional value.
First, advocacy. The AAFP has built a highly effective, respected presence at both the federal and state levels. Its government relations work consistently translates member input into meaningful policy impact, ensuring that family medicine—and our patients—have a strong voice in critical decisions. This sustained success in advocacy directly protects and advances our ability to care for patients. The staff of our government relations team is amazing. Having served in AAFP advocacy leadership roles, I have seen firsthand how effectively this advocacy work turns member perspectives into real policy influence.
Second, inclusion of the full spectrum of AAFP members’ perspectives. The AAFP has been intentional and successful in elevating diverse voices across our specialty—students, residents, early-career physicians, rural and solo practitioners, and underrepresented groups. This breadth of representation strengthens our policies, enriches our professional community and ensures the organization reflects the realities of modern family medicine. Through my own service, I have benefited from and contributed to this exchange of perspectives, which has consistently strengthened my work and understanding of our specialty.
Third, commitment to the future workforce. The AAFP has made long-term, strategic investments in students and residents through mentorship, education and national programming such as FUTURE. The original National Conference of Family Medicine Residents occurred in 1974. This sustained focus not only promotes family medicine as a career, but also builds a strong, engaged pipeline of future leaders for our specialty. As an educator, I see the direct impact of these efforts on the learners we are preparing to lead the future of family medicine.
Together, these efforts—effective advocacy, inclusive engagement and workforce development—demonstrate the AAFP’s tangible value to both its members and the patients we serve and reflect the areas where I have focused my own leadership and service.
How would you use your leadership position to address the political divide that is currently happening within our country and in some respects within our community of family physicians? Can you offer an example of a time when you were able to build a consensus or reach a compromise on a contentious issue?
Family physicians are uniquely trained to bridge divides. Every day, we listen to differing perspectives, find shared goals and advocate with empathy and evidence. In a time of increasing polarization, I would use a leadership position to reinforce those core skills, creating space for all voices to be heard, grounding discussions in our shared commitment to patients and modeling respectful, honest dialogue even when disagreement persists. Our strength as a discipline is not unanimity, but our ability to stay connected and move forward together despite differences.
I have applied this approach in my leadership roles at both the state and national level. During my time as chair of the Commission on Federal and State Policy, the Dobbs decision created significant division and stress within the Commission. I ensured that all perspectives were openly expressed and respectfully heard, even when I did not personally agree. After facilitating that dialogue, I asked the group to unite around the Academy’s public statement. While not every individual felt fully aligned, we reached a workable consensus and were able to move forward together with a clear, collective position.
I have led similar efforts throughout my time in Missouri Academy leadership. My approach is consistent: Listen first, respond honestly, be transparent about decisions and anchor the group in shared values. I also recognize that when discussions involve fundamentally incompatible views or harm, leadership requires both respect and clarity, and at times a firmer stance.
The shared goals and values of my colleagues in family medicine are a primary reason I have devoted so much of my career to organized medicine. Working alongside colleagues in the Academy is deeply rewarding because of the people—thoughtful, committed and grounded in purpose.
Even when we disagree or approach issues from different perspectives, we remain anchored in our shared values. That ability to engage in respectful disagreement while staying aligned around a common mission is one of our greatest strengths.
It is this shared commitment—putting patients and communities first, above individual differences—that continues to inspire me and gives me confidence in the future of our specialty.
We will not agree on everything—and we should not. Meaningful progress often occurs in the space of respectful disagreement. I believe my experience navigating and leading in that space, while maintaining trust and forward momentum, prepares me well to serve on the Board.
The success of the AAFP five years from now will be determined by our ability to do—what?
The success of the AAFP five years from now will be determined by our ability to lead—clearly, consistently and unapologetically—from our values.
We must strengthen and amplify our advocacy for primary care as the foundation of the American health system. Family medicine is the largest and most trusted voice in primary care, and we must use that voice more effectively—through policy engagement, testimony, data and the lived stories of our patients and members.
We need to prove our value relentlessly. The evidence is already strong, but we must define it better, measure it more clearly, and communicate it more persuasively to policymakers and the public. Comprehensive, connected, patient-centered care is not simply better care, it is more efficient, more equitable and essential to the nation’s health.
At the same time, we must be willing to name and challenge the forces that undermine this vision, including complacency and misaligned financial incentives. Advocacy is not optional; it is our responsibility.
If we do this well—if we align our values, our data, and our voice—we will earn the trust and support of the public and policymakers. That support will allow every other priority of the AAFP to move forward more effectively.
This is the path to a healthier nation, a stronger specialty, and a more sustainable health system that better serves patients and communities. That is the future we must continue to build. I choose to continue to dream forward with that hope!