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FMRevolution Podcast: Episode 1
Check out the first episode of the FMRevolution podcast! In this episode, we discuss the new FMRevolution and CAFP Foundation websites and conduct an interview regarding #2014YearFP with Dr. Ronald Fong, Director of the UC Davis Network of Affiliated Family Medicine Residency Programs. Stay up to date by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes or other media...
read more2014: Year of the Family Physician Photos
CAFP has launched their 2014: Year of the Family Physician campaign and is looking for your participation! We’ve started our year campaign with our #2014YearFP photo campaign to help raise awareness of the family medicine specialty and we’re looking for your participation. Family medicine encompasses all ages, sexes, each organ system and every disease entity; we pay special attention to our patients’ lives within the context and the community, and have the unique opportunity to affect the health of individual patient over that person’s...
read moreThe Resurrection of the Family Physician
After rotating through so many specialties and now halfway done with residency, I realize even more the value of the generalist physician. This may seem easy for me to say as a hopeful family doctor, but every time I rotate through a specialist office (currently on surgery), my belief only grows. No one understands the whole patient or sees the big picture better. The value of broad-based training is hard to measure in some way, which is part of the problem. One way I see it is that the generalist has a better picture of how all the pieces...
read more2014: Year of the Family Physician (Part XVI)
“There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir.” That line is from Bliss Carman’s poem A Vagabond Song. His work succinctly captures the transitional mood of autumn. It is a time of rebalancing lives and perspectives. The impulse to keep the body in motion through travel and outward pursuits amidst seemingly endless sunlight now shifts to more measured reflections housed in solitude with remnants of restlessness. We will remember this autumn for the inaugural enrollment of patients into health care insurance exchanges...
read more2014: Year of the Family Physician (Part XV)
What is #2014yearfp? Larry Bauer, CEO of the Family Medicine Education Consortium has posed that question to me over the past few months. Deftly, he noted that it had to be more than just a bumper sticker. Why should the general public care about family physicians in the upcoming year? I have proposed that #2014yearfp is a compass and a beacon to help us navigate through the uncharted territories of the Affordable Care Act. However, does that answer have meaning, value, and relevance to our patients? For the majority of them, I suspect...
read more2014: Year of the Family Physician (Part XIV)
In Part XII of this series, I reported that the City of Sacramento had passed a resolution recognizing 2014 as the Year of the Family Physician. I encouraged other family physicians via Facebook, Twitter, and this blog to make a similar request before their city councils. However, there is no substitution for delivering the message face to face. At the recent AAFP National Conference, I literally reached across the convention hall aisle to speak with Dr. Beth Varadian, a second year resident from the Natividad family medicine residency in...
read more2014: Year of the Family Physician (Part XIII)
During the AAFP National Conference, I met with Larry Bauer, CEO of the Family Medicine Education Consortium [FMEC], and Donald “Raj” Woolever. Raj is the program director for the Central Maine Medical Center Family Medicine Residency. We discussed promoting #2014year at the FMEC Northeast Region Meeting in November. Larry and Raj focused on how to present the core values of family medicine to the current generation of medical students and family medicine residents. After exchanging lists of core values, we realized that we were also...
read more2014: Year of the Family Physician (Part XII)
It is official. The Mayor and the City Council of Sacramento signed a resolution on May 28th recognizing 2014 as the Year of the Family Physician. Councilmember Darrell Fong [no relation] made the formal presentation during the Council’s June 11th meeting. I want to thank him and his District Director Noah Painter for their belief that family physicians are valued contributors to the health and well-being of Sacramento’s citizens. Previously, I had worked with Darrell and Noah when I was on the local Little League board. This prior...
read more2014: Year of the Family Physician (Part XI)
In their book The Impact Equation, authors Chris Brogan and Julien Smith explore and qualify variables that burn an idea into people’s hearts. They conclude that impact = C x (R + E + A + T + E). We can apply this equation to evaluate the impact of family physicians in next year’s ACA implementation. The C is contrast. Family medicine’s scope and philosophy provide us with a distinct advantage. Business is keenly monitoring the unfolding of the ACA. They are deciding whether to comply with the requirements or pay the financial penalty....
read moreSharing My Dream — and a Bathroom, a Kitchen and a Living Room
This post originally appeared on the AAFP’s Leader Voices Blog on Friday, June 21, 2013. I recently had laser eye surgery, which means I no longer need glasses. Finally! It also should mean no more jokes comparing me to Harry Potter — unless people visit my apartment. Although J.K. Rowling’s bespectacled boy wizard had a bed in a tiny room under the stairs, my new bedroom is in a tiny room above the stairs. To be exact, it’s 6-by-10. The ceiling is so low, I can’t stand up. But there is just enough room to lie...
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