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Video: We Are Family Physicians

This video was [recently] shown at the 2010 American Academy of Family Physicians annual meeting in Denver. The theme is simple: “We are here. We are listening. We are healing. We are family physicians.”

People ask me all the time “what do you do?” There’s no easy way to explain all the things that I do as a family physician. In addition, each family doc in each community is unique. That’s kind of part of the difficulty of answering the question. But I believe this video does a good job of trying to encapsulate who we are as family physicians:

*This blog post was originally published at Doctor Anonymous*

AAFP’s 2011 Family Physician Of The Year

This video was recorded at the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) meeting in Denver last week. Hughes Melton, M.D., was awarded the “2011 Family Physician of the Year” award. The video below shares his story. I also encourage you to read more of his story from the news article on the AAFP website.

I have always been inspired by hearing the stories of the “Family Physician of the Year.” One of my wild and crazy dreams is to achieve this award someday, but I know that I definitely have a long way to go.

Congratulations, Dr. Melton!

*This blog post was originally published at Doctor Anonymous*

A Family Medicine Leader: What It Is, What It Takes

What is a leader? What is a family medicine leader? Giving a clear and concise answer to these questions have been a challenge for me as I have taken on different leadership tasks and positions.

I can’t believe that it was 10 years ago when I gave my first speech in seeking national office for my professional organization. I was in the final year of my residency, and my colleagues had to convince me to “just give it a go.”

I had done a bunch of stuff on the state level. But, I didn’t feel my game was ready for “prime time” -– meaning being on a national stage. I remember that speech like it was yesterday. My heart still pounds and my hands still get sweaty thinking about it. At the time, it was the most stressful couple of minutes of my life. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Doctor Anonymous*

Why I Skipped My Medical Society Meeting For A Blog Conference

I have a lot of friends in Boston this week who are attending the annual meeting for the American Academy of Family Physicians (ie – Congress of Delegates or AAFP CoD). And, they may not be too happy with what they read in this post, but here goes.

As some of you know, I’m scheduled to present at BlogWorld Expo (BWE) later this week in Las Vegas. I’m going to be moderating a panel about how patient privacy and the HIPPA law can impact blogging, podcasting, and interacting with social networking. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Doctor Anonymous*

The Future Of Primary Care: HSAs, Catastrophic Coverage, And Direct Payment For The Basics

gordonmooreI’ve been following the career trajectory of Dr. Gordon Moore since I first became aware of his low-overhead, high-tech model of medical practice. He’s come a long way since the AAFP first interviewed him in 2002. I had the chance to catch up with him at the recent Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco, and we discussed the future of primary care and a practice model that I believe in (I just joined DocTalker Family Medicine myself!) Here’s our peek into our healthcare crystal ball…

Dr. Val: Tell me about what got you interested in creating a new practice model for primary care?

Moore: I came into healthcare with a somewhat Pollyannaish vision of reducing suffering and improving health. Without any docs in my family, I had no understanding of what it meant to actually practice. About 5 years after residency, I realized that there was an increasing disparity between my vision of practicing medicine and its reality. At that time I joined a quality improvement initiative at the University of Rochester, and we looked at increasing efficiency in primary care, including creating the idealized design of clinical office practices. Read more »

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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