Archives
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New events at this year’s C. Frank Webber Lectureship and Interim Session
By Samantha White
If you haven’t yet registered for the upcoming TAFP C. Frank Webber Lectureship and Interim Session happening April 8 – 9 in Austin, there’s no time like the present! In addition to the incredible 16.25 CME credits offered Friday and Saturday and our standard council meetings happening Friday morning, we have a series of exciting firsts for TAFP on Saturday.
Our first Member Assembly at Interim Session will take place at breakfast and include a great discussion on trends in health care from author Peter Valenzuela, MD, MBA. Attendees will receive a copy of his new, insightful book Doc-Related.
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Texas House Speaker appoints House Select Committee on Health Care Reform
By Jonathan Nelson
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan announced interim committee charges for the 87th Legislature on March 10 including several items of interest to family physicians and their patients. The speaker also announced the creation of two special interim committees, one on health care reform and the other on criminal justice reform.
“The interim charges are the result of my conversations with House colleagues from across the state, many of whom have concluded there is more work to be done to reform the state's health care and criminal justice systems,” Speaker Phelan said in a press release. “That’s why I have formed two interim committees to devote special attention to these issues, which I consider of utmost importance heading into the next legislative session.”
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MEMBER VOICES: The future of family medicine
By Larry Kravitz, MD, and Lily Cormier
Such high hopes when it all began in 1970, with a new specialty that renamed itself and decided to take primary care seriously. Family medicine is now more than 50 years old, with 133,000 physicians in the United States. Where will it all be 50 years from now?
There is an old African proverb, “Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.” We see our medical past in terms of our victories, but we minimize our failures. So we do as well with the future; we expect to build on our successes, and don’t understand that our failures tag along and can poison the wellspring of our dreams. As long as we keep applying the template of our distorted past to our expectations of the future, we will never see it coming. The future threatens to run over us from behind as we’re squinting our gaze to a glorious distant horizon. The future is all around us right now, but it is clouded by the rose-colored lenses we insist on wearing. We don’t need a false prophet nor do we need a harbinger of doom, but there are two conflicting futures ahead and we need to embrace them both.
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It's OK to ask for a little help from your friends
By Anticipate Joy
Do you ever find yourself feeling alone in dealing with various personal and professional life stressors? As a result, do you find yourself turning inward and isolating? The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that social isolation is associated with about a 50% increased risk for dementia and other serious medical issues.
It’s important to keep in mind, not only is loneliness a high-risk factor for depression, but it is also a risk factor for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and arthritis.
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The future of family medicine and primary care ain’t what it used to be
Fast moving market changes pose challenges and opportunities for family doctors in every sector
By Tom Banning, TAFP CEO
I love a good Yogi Berra quote to start off a column and few have ever been as appropriate as this one is for family physicians today: The future ain’t what it used to be.
Changes in the health care marketplace here in Texas and across the country pose significant challenges and opportunities for our members, whether they practice in rural or metropolitan communities, regardless of where they fall on the broad spectrum of practice types. I believe addressing these changes is among the most pressing issues we face as an Academy.
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TAFP Past President Glen Johnson dies
By Samantha White
TAFP Past President Glen Royce Johnson, MD, passed away February 20, 2022, at his home in Pinecrest, Florida.
After completing medical school and residency at Howard University, Johnson joined AAFP in 1976 and quickly rose the ranks in both AAFP and TAFP. He served as a TAFP alternate delegate then delegate to AAFP’s Congress of Delegates in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and became the first Black physician to serve as TAFP president in 1986. Johnson was a director on the AAFP Board of Directors, then AAFP vice president in the early and mid 1990s, and eventually served as AAFP’s alternate delegate then delegate to the American Medical Association in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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TMA fund supports medical families in crisis
TMA fund supports medical families in crisis
By Tammy Wishard
A dedicated physician finds himself struggling with dementia in his later years, with his wife by his side caring for him. To provide needed income, the Johnsons (not their real name) sell their home and relocate to their smaller vacation residence in another part of the state, leaving behind lifelong friends.
Funds dwindle as the couple makes needed accessibility updates to the home and pays for health insurance. As the days and months pass, and with no support from family, the wife begins to wear down from her role as caretaker. She needs a break. Mrs. Johnson reaches out to TMA’s Physicians Benevolent Fund (PBF) for assistance, and PBF fills the need, providing funding for respite care so she can have a few hours each week to tend to her needs.
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