Professional Issues

(10/07/2009)  --  The American Board of Family Medicine, or ABFM, has announced that it is joining forces with the American Board of Internal Medicine, or ABIM, to establish a pilot program for Recognition of Focused Practice, or RFP, in Hospital Medicine. The announcement is welcome news to AAFP President-elect Lori Heim, M.D., of Vass, N.C., a hospitalist who says she sees many benefits in such recognition. But she cautions that any RFP program that might result from the pilot should not be used to limit the scope of family physicians who practice the full scope of family medicine, including both inpatient and outpatient medicine. More

(10/02/2009)  --  The AAFP has sounded a clarion call in a new physician workforce reform report that recommends comprehensive changes in national workforce planning; specialty distribution; graduate medical education, or GME, funding; and medical education policy to secure a family physician and primary care workforce that meets the country's burgeoning needs. More

(09/23/2009)  --  The novel influenza A (H1N1) virus could overwhelm the nation's health care system by exacerbating the existing shortages of physicians and other health care professionals, thus leaving some patients who contract the virus without proper medical attention. That was one of the main messages delivered by witnesses who testified before the House Committee on Small Business on Sept. 9. More

(09/23/2009)  --  The nation's primary care physician residency programs are plagued by a lack of interest, support and funding. This situation, in turn, is helping to drive the nation's chronic shortage of primary care physicians, said the chair of the Council on Graduate Medical Education, or COGME, who spoke before the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, or MedPAC, Sept. 18 in Washington. More

(09/16/2009)  --  Although the entry of retail health clinics into health care during the past few years has generated concern among more established providers, a recently released RAND Corp. study published in the Sept. 1 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine indicates that the cost and quality of health care provided by retail health clinics may be comparable to that provided in more traditional health care settings. More

(09/16/2009)  --  In the battle to recognize the importance of a primary care-based health care system to health care reform, computer giant IBM has been a vocal proponent of the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH. Led by its global director of health care transformation, Paul Grundy, M.D., M.P.H., the company has been immersed in encouraging other large employers to recognize that a PCMH model can lead to lower costs, as well as to improved access, quality and health care outcomes. More

(09/02/2009)  --  Barbara Starfield, M.D., M.P.H., is a renowned researcher, scholar and author. A distinguished professor with appointments in the departments of Health Policy and Management and Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Medicine in Baltimore, she is known throughout the world for her work in demonstrating the value of primary care. More