NCCL Convener Returns to Where Her Leadership Path Began

Adamson reshaped the program’s didactic curriculum as a chief resident. She was honored by the North Carolina AFP as an outstanding resident in 2010 and earned the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine’s Resident Teaching Award in 2011.

But just three years into her work at a community group practice, Adamson felt burned out and desperate for change.

“I was wondering, ‘How is it that I already can’t do family medicine?’” she said. “I was pretty down on myself.”

Adamson found the change she needed in 2014 when she became the clinical team lead for a unique, start-up primary care practice for health care center employees and their families in Lebanon, N.H. She was involved in designing the practice, which has integrated behavioral health, psychiatry and pharmacy services, from the ground up.

A year later, Adamson’s career got another boost when the New Hampshire AFP sent her as a delegate to the AAFP’s National Conference of Constituency Leaders in Kansas City, Mo. The annual event is a leadership development conference for women, minorities, new physicians, international medical graduates, and LGBTQ+ physicians and those who support LGBTQ+ issues.

“It was the 25th anniversary of the conference, and it was just so energizing,” she said. “Family docs are amazing, wonderful and positive, especially at that conference. People encourage you to learn about the governance process, write resolutions and run for leadership positions.”

Adamson did run, and won. She was elected the new physician co-convener for the 2016 NCCL, meaning she led the caucus for physicians in their first seven years of practice. Along with that position came the responsibilities of serving as a new physician alternate delegate at the 2015 Congress of Delegates and new physician delegate at the 2016 COD, representing new physicians’ interests in the AAFP’s policy-making body.

Adamson’s role in family medicine leadership was just getting started. She was a member of the AAFP’s Commission on Quality and Practice for four years before serving as its chair in 2021. Her commission role led to the opportunity to serve for five years as an AAFP advisor to the AMA Relative Value Scale Update Committee. That panel of physicians, also known as the RUC, makes recommendations to the federal government regarding the resources required to provide medical services.

“I came in just after a time when there had been a lot of debate about whether the AAFP should withdraw from the RUC,” said Adamson, who recently attended her final RUC meeting. “I was curious to know more about the process because I like to know what I’m up against. It’s definitely been an eye-opening experience.”

Adamson’s time on the RUC coincided with the first revaluation of evaluation and management codes since 2010. The process, which included a physician survey, resulted from a decision to give physicians the option to select E/M codes using either time on the date of service or medical decision-making.

Before taking on RUC duties, Adamson had attended NCCL for three consecutive years. Committee meetings, however, conflicted with the AAFP conference until last year, when she returned and was elected convener for this year’s NCCL, which is scheduled for May 9-11 in Kansas City, Mo. Registration is open now.

As part of the AAFP Leadership Conference, NCCL will coincide with the Annual Chapter Leader Forum and the State Legislative Conference. 

“There’s something in it for everyone,” Adamson said. “Whether folks want to learn leadership skills that they will use in their practice or at the state and national levels, there are things they can take away from the conference.

“There are no prerequisites for NCCL. We all have what we need to get started on this journey; just jump right in. And making connections with our peers is a really amazing thing. It’s a positive, energizing experience that has helped me keep going even when practice is really hard. I feel like I’m doing my little part to make the practice of family medicine better by advocating for our patients and my fellow family physicians.”

Adamson returned to her native Colorado in 2018 to help care for father and is a member of the Colorado AFP Board of Directors. She took a job as clinic medical director at Clinica Family Health Services, a federally qualified health center north of Denver where she had shadowed family doctors as a college student.

“I was very familiar with Clinica growing up,” said Adamson, who splits her time evenly between patient care and administrative duties. “It has a strong reputation locally and nationally within the FQHC network, so it was the first place I looked for a job when I decided to move. They happened to have a medical director position open, and I was like, ‘That’s exactly what I want to do.’”

Adamson said she entered Boston University School of Medicine with an open mind about specialties, despite her early exposure to family medicine.

“The one other thing that I considered most strongly was OB/Gyn,” she said, “but then I did a rotation at the VA. I just loved the old guys there, and I thought, ‘This is one group I would never see as an OB/Gyn, and I can’t exclude this group of people.’ I can totally do OB as family doc, so that was the specialty for me.”