Jeffrey Walden, MD
As both physician and educator working primarily with underserved patients, I have seen time and again how the idealism in caring for patients can fall short of reality when working in our current health systems.
While it may be tempting when confronted with these shortfalls to take the easy path towards cynicism, our patients deserve better. As do our learners—it is never too early to model right behaviors when educating medical learners on various ways to tackle health disparities. And one of those ways is through patient-centered advocacy.
Remember the Stories
This past weekend I was fortunate to attend the 2018 Family Medicine Advocacy Summit in Washington, DC as a recipient of the STFM New Faculty Advocacy Scholarship. The Summit proved a great opportunity to learn more about advocacy in general, as well as the importance of putting patient stories first.
The conference ran for 2 days. The first consisted of a full day of learning about current issues in healthcare, including changes in advanced payment models, updates on health coverage in the media, strategies to engage with legislators, and the requisite discussion of opioids. As an AAFP-organized conference, Summit topics skewed heavily towards changes in the health care landscape in the United States today and how these changes affect the practicing family physician.
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