Speakers offer sneak peek at their FUTURE workshops

June 12, 2025, David Mitchell — Programming at FUTURE (formerly National Conference) is as broad as the specialty itself. Educational sessions at the July 31-Aug. 2 event for medical students and family medicine residents in Kansas City, Missouri, cover the Match, clinical topics, procedural workshops, career options in family medicine and much more.

AAFP News recently spoke with four family physicians whose FUTURE workshops reflect the broad scope of the conference to hear about their presentations, the conference and why it is a great opportunity for learners.

Did National Conference influence your specialty choice or help you find your residency when you were a student?

Kalee Kirmer-Voss, MD, FAAFP, assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Kansas in Kansas City, Kansas: I did not have the opportunity to attend as a student, but I wish I had because the networking that happens is really invigorating. Affirming my desire to do family medicine and really solidifying that as a student would have been so helpful. If you have the opportunity, I encourage you to go.

_{Medical student Nicole Serrant Ayes listens to instructions about assessing cervical dilation from resident Devin Wright, DO, in at the 2024 National Conference The workshop will be repeated this year at FUTURE.}

Sara Oberhelman-Eaton, MD, faculty at the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota: I already was solidified in my decision to do family medicine, but attending reaffirmed my excitement for the specialty. I was living in Kansas City, going to KU for med school. I was on my sub-I as a fourth-year student. I would finish rounds and then run to National Conference in the afternoons and evenings. It felt like being a family doc in the morning and then exploring my future in the afternoon.

I had an Excel spreadsheet of all the residencies I wanted to meet and all the questions I wanted to ask. I had a packet for each one so I could take notes. It’s an efficient way to get a lot of information quickly. I probably talked to 30 residences in two days. I remember running around that exhibit hall meeting a lot of people, getting a lot of information, and getting prepared to submit applications and go on the interview trail.

Gretchen Irwin, MD, MBA, associate professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at University of Kansas School of Medicine’s Wichita campus: I went to my first National Conference after my first year in medical school. I didn’t intend to do family medicine, but the conference opened my eyes to what family physicians can do and what family medicine can be. I fell in love with family medicine at National Conference and went back every year.

I grew up in western Pennsylvania and thought I wanted to go to residency somewhere else, but I didn't know what I wanted, what my residency would look like or where I wanted to be. The exhibit hall was this great place where I could explore lots of different options and find programs that I never would have found any other way. I found my residency program there. I found my specialty choice there, so I’m a huge National Conference fan.

David Schechter, MD, solo practice physician, Los Angeles: I went as a resident two years in a row. I enjoyed attending the sessions and workshops and being immersed in the family practice culture. It was a good time, and I also enjoyed Kansas City.

Do you encourage the students you’re working with now to attend FUTURE?

Oberhelman-Eaton: Yes, but it’s a different pitch depending on where the student is in their journey. For early-year students, it’s a fun way to see the specialty beyond the walls of your own institution. If you’re at an academic medical center in a major city, you can go and get a feel for what rural medicine is like or vice versa. You get a get a broader flavor for all the things family medicine is and can be.

_{Katherine Ehman, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, helps attendees at an induction/augmentation station during a family medicine obstetrics workshop at the 2024 National Conference.}

For a later-year student, I think the message is more about the opportunity to network and meet a lot of residencies. I can’t think of anything that compares to it, especially for that fourth-year student who is preparing to apply and interview. It’s a phenomenal opportunity for anyone who has an interest in family medicine. I would plan my itinerary a little different as a first- or second-year student versus a third- or fourth-year or as a resident, but there are opportunities for all those learners.

Kirmer-Voss: I encourage my students to go so they can experience family medicine as a whole. They will have the opportunity to meet different residencies and see what different careers in family medicine look like. That’s important because at their own institutions they may not see the full scope of the specialty. They can talk with people who have experience doing different aspects of family medicine.

Earlier students can learn what family medicine is, and you’ll find a lot of lectures and presentations to help you decide if this is the career path you want to go down.

For the students who are really solidified on family medicine, it’s an opportunity to network with residency programs and other students from across the nation. They can build that network of people who they can reach out to when they have questions or if they want to collaborate on projects.

Irwin: I work in Wichita, so our students can drive to the conference. I tell them it’s a great time to go explore. If they go to the conference and decide not to do family medicine, they've probably still learned a lot. There are so many procedure workshops and other sessions. There’s great information for any medical student.

If they are thinking about family medicine, it’s a really great place to ask, “Is this specialty right for me? Can I see myself doing this?” It’s a place where they'll find mentors and explore what family medicine can mean for them. I think everybody leaves the conference inspired, so I encourage them to go and be open to what the conference offers. I don’t have to nudge them too hard. I introduce them to the idea, and they go. A lot of students come back and speak so highly of the event that the next year students say, “OK, I want to go, too.”

_{Devin Wright, DO, a resident from the Mayo Clinic Family Medicine Residency, helps students with a model at the 2024 National Conference.}

What's one big takeaway you hope attendees get from your session at FUTURE?

Kirmer-Voss: My session is focused on myths about family medicine. We bust these myths, help students solidify their choice in family medicine and help them be able to talk about family medicine to people who may not understand what family medicine is.

I hope students leave my session feeling more empowered to discuss family medicine with their family and friends, and really drive forward in a career in family medicine.

Irwin: Our session talks about applying to residency programs, particularly if you have had a stumble or challenge. Often, students feel that if they’ve had an exam failure or if they’ve had to repeat a course, they think they’re done for residency applications. It’s not true. There are ways for every student to have a good strategy for applying to residency and getting into the residency they want. They have to be smart about it, and we’re hoping to give them insights and perspective from folks who have seen lots of matches and helped a lot of students figure out the right strategy to find their programs.

Schechter: There are fewer physicians going into private practice. I want to give students and residents an opportunity to hear about what it’s like. My goal is to give them exposure to something which was once the standard in family medicine but is now quite a bit less common.

Speakers at the 2025 FUTURE Conference

_{Kalee Kirmer-Voss, MD, FAAFP}

^{Myths, Legends and the Truth About Family Medicine: A Workshop for the Inquisitive Mind}

_{Sara Oberhelman-Eaton, MD}

^{Procedure Carousel: A Rotation Through Multiple FM Procedures Using Hands-On Models and FMOB: A Hands-On Mini Boot Camp}

_{Gretchen Irwin, MD, MBA}

^{Navigating Obstacles to a Successful FM Residency Application}

_{David Schechter, MD}

^{Running a Private Practice Successfully}

I’d like to keep this option alive. Independent practice offers something physicians employed by larger groups struggle to offer, which is a practice crafted around a physician’s particular strengths and skills. I’m advocating for something that worked out well for me, but I didn’t start as a private practice doctor. In my first eight or 10 years after residency, I worked in urgent care and taught at a residency program. I did a variety of things as an employed physician. I transitioned into part-time private practice and eventually into full-time private practice, which I’ve been doing for more than 25 years.

It was a process for me, and I’m going to share that with students and residents. You don’t necessarily have to jump into private practice right out of residency. It may not be the best time, especially if you have a lot of student loans and obligations. For some, it may be the best time. It’s about finding the right setting for yourself. Some people will do well in an academic position or a community health clinic. For others, private practice might be the ideal way for them to express themselves both as a physician and as a human being, giving yourself the maximal satisfaction and providing the kind of patient care you want to provide.

I’ll talk about the decision-making process as far as going into private practice versus an employed position, and the strengths and weaknesses of those options. I’ll also cover challenges, timing, financial management, budgeting, marketing, insurance and other things to consider when starting a practice.

Oberhelman-Eaton: I have two workshops. One of them is a hands-on-procedure workshop, and the other is a hands-on OB workshop. The procedure workshop is fast-paced with five stations and an instructor at each station. There are models that the learner will practice a skill set with.

For first- or second-year students, this might be the first time they’ve heard of some of these procedures or held this equipment. For those students, it’s meant to showcase that while sometimes we think about the more intellectual side of our specialty, there is definitely a hands-on procedural component to family medicine that can be a major part of their career.

For our later-year students, it’s more about the opportunity to practice these skills. They may be on their clerkships already or may be preparing for a clerkship. This isn’t just a suturing workshop. We intentionally choose procedures they’re not getting somewhere else. For example, we do toenail resections and frenotomies. We’re focusing on procedures not represented in other procedural workshops at the conference.

Are they going to become experts in 13 minutes? No, but it’s an opportunity to practice those skills for our later-year residents and even sometimes our attendings who come as learners.

We also showcase how we make these models and how we utilize them for teaching. So, it’s also an opportunity to learn a new skill, to take back to your own institution in terms of teaching procedural skills to your own learners. These are models you can make with things you find in your clinic, at a big-box store or a home improvement store. They’re not expensive things you have to buy from medical specialty stores. These models are things that you can keep in the drawer and pull out when you have a no-show on your schedule to work with the students when you’re precepting in clinic.

3 Reasons to Attend FUTURE 2025

Whether you're a medical student exploring specialities or you know family medicine is your calling, you'll:

Connect with 500+ family medicine residency programs in the Expo Hall
Get hands-on training in procedural workshops
Meet family physicians and medical students from across the country

We really try to have something so anyone, even an expert in this procedure, could learn something about how to teach it on the fly with things you have on hand.

The OB workshop is structured similarly: five workstations with their own instructors and hands-on models. We really want to showcase the opportunities for obstetrics within family medicine. We know that not every family doctor is going to choose to have obstetrics be a part of their career, but we also know that this is an exciting aspect of a career for many of us who love it so passionately.

We have a lot of fun.

Mayo has done both these workshops before, correct?

Oberhelman-Eaton: Yes. The first time I did the procedure workshop was in 2019. We have brought that one back in some form every year since.

This will be the third year we’ve brought the OB workshop. We do an OB boot camp at our institution, not with these specific models, but I saw an opportunity at National Conference because there are a lot of people who are interested in OB and want more opportunities to practice those skills and connect with others who do OB.

I am partial to the OB workshop. Our models are really creative and simple. We’ve got a lot of Tupperware, balls, water balloons. We do amniotomies on our vagina models. My house gets really interesting in the summer. It’s a really fun workshop.

That’s the workshop with a station where the learners estimate how much blood the patient has lost, right?

Oberhelman-Eaton: The OB workshop has a little bit of a shock-and-awe factor because we do have a postpartum hemorrhage station. I make “blood” that’s actually Jell-O, food dye and corn syrup. I stay at a hotel that has a kitchen suite, and the kitchen looks a little massacred when I'm done. I leave a big tip that night.

My family is in Kansas City, so I keep some supplies at my dad’s house. We bring six minivans full of crates with us. For the postpartum hemorrhage station, we run it like a mock code. We talk about some of the obstetrical emergencies that can occur in the delivery room. They go through shoulder dystotia. We have a pelvic model, a baby model, a placenta model.

We also will estimate hemorrhage amounts, so we have multiple stations with blood and clot, and the students will guess the amount of hemorrhage. It’s to point out that we’re all bad at estimating blood loss in a patient, which is probably why many institutions are moving more to a (quantitative blood loss) rather than an (estimated blood loss) model.

There’s also an amniotomy station. We have water balloons, so students are really breaking a bag of water and getting the gush, which is fun.

What drew you to family medicine, and what continues to keep you invigorated in your work?

Schechter: I like the fact that family medicine is the most biopsychosocial specialty. I also felt like a family doctor was a “real doctor” because you know how to take care of any person, any patient. Specialists are more limited in what they do. We have variety and the whole patient, the whole family to deal with.

What keeps me inspired is the relationships I have with patients I’ve been seeing for more than 20 years. It’s a very personal type of relationship they’re coming into in private practice. They’re coming to see Dr. Schechter specifically. They’re not just coming to a clinic, seeing whoever they’re assigned to and hoping for the best. I like that personal element. They’re seeking me out.

Kirmer-Voss: I’m from a rural area where I saw that family medicine doctors were the ones providing care, and they were right there with the patient helping them get where they needed to go, taking care of a lot of that management when patients couldn’t reach subspecialists.

My goal was to go back to a rural area, but I found out in residency that I loved teaching and ended up in an academic institution. What keeps invigorating me about family medicine is the fact that we can showcase to students that we can do full-spectrum care, and you can really make this career whatever you want it to be. Maybe you want to be a hospitalist? Or maybe you only want to do outpatient care. You can change your career at any point in family medicine and never have to go back to residency to do so. That’s a cool thing about family medicine. That is what I try to impress upon students who are interested in this field.

Seeing our students excited to go and care for people in all aspects of their life is what drives me. I love what I do, taking care of patients and building long-term relationships. When you have someone you’ve been taking care of for years, you become an extension of their family with some patients. Seeing the joy they get by coming in to see you in the office, and even going to their home for home visits, is a privilege. Those are the things that really make me love family medicine.

Oberhelman-Eaton: It’s the variety and the relationships. I’m at an academic medical center that has some sub, sub, sub, subspecialists. We need those in medicine, right? We need that expertise, but we also need generalists. I would get so bored if I took care of a single body part or a single disease process all day, every day. I love the fact that I had a day where I did an end-of-life home visit for a patient and family that I have known for years, and then I drove across town and delivered a baby for another family that I’ve known for years. I might be in clinic for a well-child visit, and the next patient could be a middle-aged person with diabetes. The next person could be a 95-year-old, and the next one could be a toenail resection. I never know what I’m going to walk into next. Even if I see the patient’s demographics and their chief complaints in the chart, how that visit is going to go is a complete mystery until you’re in that room.

I love that I know more than the chart could ever describe. We’re not just taking care of a person, we’re taking care of their family. We know the mom and the kid and the grandma and all the details that go into making a person a person and impact their health beyond vital signs and labs. It’s a privilege to be a part of people’s lives in such an intimate and special way. Despite all the frustrations that can occur in medicine and in primary care, I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Irwin: It’s people’s stories. You get this moment in an exam room with a patient to be part of their story, to hear their history. People are fascinating. They all have really wonderful things to share about their lives, and we get to be a little part of that in family medicine.

I love the variety. I like that every day is a little bit different. Every patient is a little bit different. I never know what I'm going to walk into when I enter an exam room, and that really inspires me.

I get to teach. That’s my full-time job, being a family medicine educator in academic medicine. It’s really watching the next generation discover family medicine and being part of their firsts, whether it’s a first delivery, first sutures, or first time admitting a patient. Teaching allows me to experience that feeling again and again. Students continually remind me why I love family medicine.