Contents tagged with tafp
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September 2021 Member of the Month
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Member of the Month: Emily Levy Kamugisha, MD
Early-career family physician advocates for HIV harm reduction strategies
By Kate Alfano
posted 09.01.21
Emily Levy Kamugisha, MD, AAHIVS, is … more
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A scribe's story
By Ben Saul, Harish Thoppe, and Larry Kravitz, MD
It is hard to lay bare your personal medical practice to the eyes of another professional. As I have told every medical student on rotation with me, “You will learn from me how to practice medicine right, but you will also quietly learn how to practice medicine wrong, seeing things you will know you never want to repeat.” We are imperfect. When we are teaching medical students, we showcase our successes, but we relinquish any hope of hiding our professional flaws. You must make your own peace with that in order to teach. You must trust in the benevolence of students to see that you stepped up to the plate and volunteered to try to raise their medical skills.
Medical students shadow and practice, practice and shadow. They come and go, usually for four short weeks within a family medicine rotation. But scribes come and stay; they are the ultimate shadows. Muted by the nature of their mission. Silent witness to the inner clinical sanctum. We take them on to share the exhausting intensity of our trusting patients with their challenging mortal illnesses and aging. A bond develops with your scribe, often unspoken, yet undeniably strong.
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Member News Q2-2021
Member News
TAFP members receive state, national appointments
Over the past few months, several Texas family physicians have either won elections or received appointments to important positions … more
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New Braunfels family physician receives TMA’s Young at Heart Award
New Braunfels family physician Emily D. Briggs, MD, MPH is the 2021 Texas Medical Association Young at Heart Award recipient. Doctors from the TMA Young Physician Section announced the award during TexMed, TMA’s annual meeting, held virtually.
The YPS, a group of TMA physicians under age 40 or in their first eight years of medical practice, chose Briggs for her dedication to engaging medical students, resident physicians, fellows, and young physicians in organized medicine.
“I have never been so pleasantly acknowledged — and by a wonderful group of future leaders,” said Briggs, a TMA member for 17 years.
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Awarding grants in the Heart of Texas
By Jean Klewitz
The TAFP Heart of Texas Chapter started a chapter grant program in early 2020. Supported by family physicians, the grant program fuels local community work. Applicants to the grant program are chapter members supporting the local community or member-nominated community groups within the Heart of Texas’ 12 counties.
Leaders of the chapter, Karen Smith, MD, chair, and Katharina Hathaway, MD, vice chair, met while doing some nonprofit work together through the Manor Community Wellness Alliance. Smith was working with others to start the Manor Free Clinic. Their meeting in humanitarian work helped fuel philanthropic community work within their chapter.
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Texas Family Physician of the Year: Adrian Billings, MD, PhD
Building something bigger in the Big Bend
Story by Kate Alfano and photos by Jonathan Nelson
Many outstanding Texas family physicians provide excellent patient care. Others serve the future … more
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President's Letter
Keeping up the fight for family medicine through the pandemic
By Amer Shakil, MD, MBA
TAFP PresidentGreetings members. What a strange year and a half its been for all of us. As life is slowly and cautiously beginning to return to something akin to normal, we should take a moment to acknowledge the struggles and the achievements we have experienced, both individually and as a specialty. Over these several months, the resilience of family physicians, our physician colleagues, other health care providers, and aides of all sorts has been nothing short of amazing.
I have also marveled at the resilience of our Academy. In February of 2020, it seemed unimaginable that we would cancel April’s C. Frank Webber Lectureship and Interim Session. And then it became obvious that we couldn’t possibly hold the meeting. The Academy would go on to learn to produce virtual conferences, and that’s how we would conduct business for the rest of the year.
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July 2021 Member of the Month
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Member of the Month: Jerry Kirkland, MD, MBA, FAAFP
Amarillo family physician shines as an exemplary doctor and teacher in variety of settings
By Kate Alfano
posted 07.01.21
Jerry Kirkland, … more
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TAFP Pulse - Virtual Conference
TAFP Pulse Virtual Conference
Welcome to TAFP’s virtual education conference, TAFP Pulse, where you can get the latest clinical information on hypertension, adult ADHD, joint injections, and … more
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Let the Child Psychiatry Access Network help you help your patients
By Edith Ortiz, MBA
The Child Psychiatry Access Network can assist a primary care physician during a mental-health-focused assessment in the office, providing them with education and recommendations for evidence-based interventions. Studies show that families place enormous trust in you, their family doctor, and often prefer to have mental health issues managed without a referral to a specialist. Our CPAN team is there to support that process as well as help locate mental health services when the problem is severe and warrants specialty intervention.
We are happy to take a call whether the patient is in your office or not. Call us when you get that inbox message and are not sure of the next steps. Call us when an intervention you have recommended is not effective. Call us when you want help explaining a mental health challenge to a family. You will reach a team member within five minutes of your call, and if a child psychiatry team member is needed to assist, they will call you back within 30 minutes.
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