“You only have 13 residents in your program? That is not possible! Duke is omnipresent at this conference! I see them everywhere.”
These words, shared with us by a student visiting our recruiting booth, sum up what “Team Duke” did in Kansas City at the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Students July 30-Aug. 1. Indeed our team of residents, students, recent graduates, staff and faculty from the Duke Family Medicine Residency Program was so busy at the conference and the congress that the perception was that we had come with a much larger team — an “ever present force,” as another student put it.
We started early on Thursday morning, when Aaron George, DO, recent graduate of the Duke Family Medicine Residency Program, and Farhad Modarai, DO, third-year resident, led a “New Skills for the 21st Century Family Physician” presentation that brought in 75 attendees. They shared their vision of how new technology will shape the way we practice medicine in the future. And using a “new and revolutionary app,” they “beamed in” a doctor from the future: Francesco Bianchi, who told the audience about a day in his life as a rural family doc in 2030.
Thursday afternoon, Tiffany Cagle, M.D., third-year resident; Jonathan Hedrick, M.D., first-year resident; and Stephanie Ngo and Trevor Dickey, Duke University medical students in the Primary Care Leadership Track (PCLT); and I led a 90-minute advocacy workshop entitled “Embracing Cultural Humility, Competency, and Advocacy to Decrease Health Disparities” that walked 65 attendees through the eight steps of putting vision and passion into an advocacy plan.
Both workshops were repeated again on following days and sent a flock of new students interested in learning more about the program to our very Duke blue recruiting booth, which was located among other North Carolina family medicine residency program booths.
Our booth was attended by Mo Shahsahebi, M.D., MBA; Vanessa Solomon, DO, second-year resident; Teri Pond, program coordinator; Joshua Lancaster, M.D., chief resident; and other members of the residency team when time allowed.
Primary Care Leadership Track students
Ngo and Dickey, PCLT students, presented a poster about their Refugee Health Initiative at Dukeand they visited with many of the more than 250 family medicine residency programs represented at the conference.
Ngo and Dickey were also scholarship recipients for the First Time Attendees Scholarship. Jessica Friedman attended the conference as a North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians (NCAFP) Family Medicine Scholar.
Program directors from competitive programs in California, the Northwest and Northeast approached me at different times, commenting on the quality and depth of the conversations they’ve had with the Duke students. They let me know how impressed they were with the characteristics of the Duke students who had come by their booth, and how much they would like to have them in their programs.
One program director said, “Whatever it is you are doing there at Duke, I want your formula. It sure looks like a miracle!”
Resident and student congresses
Running alongside the conference were two congresses. Students and residents deliberated, had their business sessions and came up with resolutions that will be directed to the AAFP Board of Directors, and the Congress of Delegates. Brian Blank, M.D., first-year resident, shined in his ability as chair of the student congress, a position he was elected to during his time as a medical student at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Our residents participated in the resident business session of the congress — a policymaking body of the AAFP. Drs. George and Modarai were involved in the resident congress. Dr. Modarai participated in a reference committee, hearing testimony on various resolutions proposed from the resident caucus, then deliberated as a member of the committee. The reference committee then made recommendations on resolutions that were presented to the resident congress on Saturday. Dr. George served as resident congress parliamentarian and he also gave a brief speech discussing the role and contributions of the AAFP in the American Medical Association.
Winding down
On Friday evening, I was a speaker at the global health forum “Global Health and Family Medicine: Finding Your Best Pathway Into Global Health” where I spoke about family medicine in Ibero America (Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Americas), and shared the Proclamation for the Health of the People signed in Montevideo at the Wonca Iberoamericana meeting in 2015. During my presentation, I exhorted the audience to interact with Wonca Polaris and its activities promoting interaction with other young physician movements in the rest of the world.
Most of the team returned to North Carolina on Saturday, and I stayed for another day of presentations at the AAFP headquarters where I was an invited faculty to the AAFP Foundation’sFamily Medicine Leads Emerging Leader Institute for Track 1, Policy and Population Health. This new program of the AAFP Foundation promises to help expand the number of future family medicine leaders by providing outstanding training opportunities. I was impressed with the ability and quality of the scholars and encourage Duke students to apply to this program in the future.
Reflecting on the conference
Back in Durham, I think of the four days spent in Kansas City. “Team Duke’s” actions were not a product of a miracle. They were the product of hard work, vision and passion turned into goals and objectives, longitudinal and experiential learning, and an emphasis on social justice and advocacy that complement a strong clinician.
A product of a push to innovate, to elaborate on our dreams of a better and different way of being active members of society, a team that looks for more elements of social justice in the way we practice family medicine. Students, residents and family physicians that see their responsibility at places beyond the walls of the office, engaged with the people in the community, academia, political and social institutions, and the world.
Viviana Martinez-Bianchi is program director of the Duke Family Medicine Residency Program. Email viviana.martinezbianchi@dm.duke.edu with questions.
Editor’s note: A member of the Duke Family Medicine Residency Program leadership team guest blogs every month.