This week, did you hear about the Family Medicine Program at Columbia NYC being closed? And then, a few hours later, did you hear that they reversed their decision? What was up with that? It's hard to say, because there is no one talking, and I only learn of what's going on from twitter and from news sources. In this program, Dr. Gerry Tolbert and I speculate on what actually happened, and I share some links about the news stories that popped up in my twitter feed over the past few days. To watch the youtube video link, check out the video below, or click here. To listen or to download the audio podcast, check out the player above, or click here.
In a more general discussion, Gerry and I talk about those "orphan medical schools" who do not have a Department of Family Medicine. This is important because I believe that Primary Care and Family Medicine are the core and the key to health care in this country. Without that Primary Care and Family Medicine influence at the medical school level, how can medical schools produce more Primary Care and Family Physicians?
Here are some articles to check out that we talked about during the show:
- International Business Times: "NY-Presbyterian Hospital To Close Family Medicine Center in 2016"
- Columbia Spectator: "Students Uncertain after Hospital Reverses Decision To Close Family Medicine Center"
- Kaiser Health News: "The Next Frontier For Elite Med Schools: Primary Care"
- New York Times: "Where Have All The Primary Care Doctors Gone?"
- AAFP.org: "Social Determinants of Health Take Center Stage"
- AAFP.org: "New AAFP Policy Rejects Nonmedical Immunization Exemptions"
Towards the end of the program, we talked about the recent AAFP Annual Meeting including a couple of resolutions that I thought were important to mention. There was a resolution about Social Determinants of Health and also Excessive Police Force that we talked about during the show. We also talked about doing away with Immunization Exemptions because #VaccinesSaveLives. (see article links above)
At the bottom of this post are some tweets that happened following the live show. Shout out to our pal Dr. Mark Ryan (@RichmondDoc on twitter) who went on a rant following the program, and his tweets include some great links to articles about why Family Medicine Matters. Thanks Mark for the great content!
Finally, the challenge now is to not forget about this story. The news cycle is so rapid these days, that next week people will forget about this - Unless, we keep talking about it. The Primary Care and Family Medicine community must keep talking about the importance of having the Primary Care and the Family Medicine voice on the Medical School campus and on the Hospital campus. If we, as a Primary Care and Family Medicine community do not stand up for our speciality, who will?