President's Message

As families relish the long summer days, create lifelong memories together and add to the daily variety of sprains and lacerations in our Family Medicine practices, medical students are preparing to attend what may become a highlight of their medical school memories:  AAFP’s National Conference for Students and Residents.  Many of us can remember the buzz of excitement from so many people in the same space excited about Family Medicine – often a distinct difference from one’s training environment.  For me, one trip to National Conference was distinctly different without my dear friend and only Family-Medicine-interested medical school classmate in attendance (the call that she’d given birth was a highlight nonetheless), but still I relished the opportunity to meet people from various residency programs, learn procedures that I could do as a Family Doc, and bask in the glow of passion for Family Medicine. 

That collective excitement is largely the reason that our WAFP-Foundation annually fundraises to send as many medical students to National Conference as possible – this year striving to send 50 students from Wisconsin. More than 80% of WAFP-supported students at National Conference ultimately Match in Family Medicine.  That’s an amazing return on investment!   

As those eager students explore the expansive exhibit hall in Kansas City and meet with teams from residency programs across the country, one of the most common points of discussion is “Why Family Medicine?”.  That question will get asked and answered likely millions of times in the months that follow as students interview for positions in Family Medicine residency programs.

Having personally asked that question many hundreds of times as a residency faculty and now program director, there is one distinct theme to the answers: an inspirational mentor.  Family Physicians simply going about their daily lives ultimately find themselves named in a residency interview as an inspiration – not typically for doing something they personally see as grandiose or earth-shattering, but simply by being willing to work with a medical student or serving a future medical student as their childhood physician. 

Take a moment to consider those who inspired your path toward Family Medicine.  In my own reflection, I think of Dr. David Agerter who grew up in tiny Kasson, Minnesota, where he ultimately served as a Family Physician, residency faculty and eventually program director.  As I shadowed him during medical school, the ease of his connection with patients from his own hometown inspired me to strive for the same.  I think of the late Dr. David Eithreim, who hosted me in his family’s home for a week as he inspired me with the balance of dedication to his patient care, his personal care as an ultra-marathoner, and his family.  His 16-year-old son shocked me when he told me he thought his dad did a “perfect job” balancing his broad-scope small-town Family

Medicine practice with self and family.  In the moment, I was impressed that a teenager would have such a balanced reflection about his own parent, but through that experience, Dr. Eithreim and his family inspired me to strive for excellence in professional, personal and family life.  They made me truly believe that “having it all” was possible in Family Medicine.  My mind wanders through many more inspirational Family Physicians in my life, and I suspect each of us has similar stories – and while each of these individuals were inspirational mentors to me, the greatest inspiration came from them simply being their genuine selves and allowing me to be witness to the greatness that is our specialty. 

So as you reflect on your past mentors, I also challenge you to reflect on who you are inspiring today.  Is it a current patient who might become a future colleague?  Are you providing health talks for adolescents in school or participating in community engagement with future Family Physicians? Are you connected to your nearest or favorite medical school or residency program to serve as a preceptor or community mentor?   

While volunteering for some of these roles can seem like a commitment of extra energy we often don’t feel we have, most who do so will reflect that what their gain is greater than their gift.  They gain refreshing reminders of the joy in medicine and what it was like to be an eager student; ways to challenge themselves to think differently about patient care based on curious learners’ questions; avenues for their patients to see them as a teachers, which evidence suggest improves patients’ impressions!  Hopefully your reflection also allows you to realize that the most important grand accomplishment to demonstrate to a mentee is simply arriving at who and where you are today. 

So, like your influential mentors, who are you mentoring today who might name you as influential in their journey to Family Medicine during residency interviews in the future?  Who will you inspire tomorrow?   Who is that gift of time and inspiration benefiting most?  Is it your mentee, yourself or our profession?  I would argue it is an abundant gift to all three, and for that gift to us all, THANK YOU! 

With gratitude, 
Beth Menzel, MD, FAAFP 
 

If you’d like to share your perspective or learn how you can get involved in our Academy, please feel free to reach out to president@wafp.org. We’d love to hear from you!