UTHSCSA student wins AAFP video contest

Troy Russell, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, won best overall video during the first-ever National Conference Family Medicine Video Contest. Video entries promoting the specialty of family medicine, created by and for family medicine residents and medical students, were judged by a panel of AAFP members and debuted during AAFP’s National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students in July.

In just 30 seconds, the winning video, “Remember,” provides a poignant reminder of why many physicians chose family medicine. “Every day of our training we are confronted with the question: Do we remember why we took this path? Was it to treat the less fortunate, to provide for the underserved, or was it to be on the front lines and advocate for our community’s health? No, we have not forgotten. We chose to become leaders. We chose to become healers. We chose to become family physicians.”

An interest in film led Russell to begin pursuing a double major in film and mechanical engineering at Brigham Young University, but a mission trip to Honduras after his freshman year changed his perspective. He switched to neuroscience with the intention to pursue medicine and public health.

He decided on family medicine during his family medicine clerkship, appreciating the breadth of the specialty, continuity of care, and the ample opportunity for research.

“My favorite part of medicine has been my interaction with patients and helping them understand their condition,” he told TAFP in a Member of the Month profile in July. “I love when the figurative light bulb turns on and my patient decides to take a more active role in her health. This is common among the family medicine physicians I have met and I feel fortunate to have worked with so many who share the same zeal for primary care.”

To view the video, go to www.aafp.org/nc/videos. To read Troy Russell’s Member of the Month profile, go to www.tafp.org/membership/spotlight/july-2012.