Yes
Rural + ED + Hospital + proc OB + Urgent Care + Procedural
That is a substantial and meaningful minority in family medicine in the U.S.
My best guess is that jumps the numbers closer to 20,000 family physicians.
Individually it's pretty tough going getting voices heard---as Emergency FP's are finding per recent article.
Collectively, that's a voice I'd like to hear more from as time goes on.
The challenges all these groups face are very similar:
lack of resource support
lack of local privileging support
lack of acceptance from some fellow FP's
lack of political awareness of their value to many, many people in the U.S.
Anyway....not sure how to address yet seems relevant in some ways to this group.
maybe we could have a summit of STFM Groups on Rural + OB + Global + Hosp-Procedures as a start? Like-minded educators looking for common ground?
Is that something people might be interested in doing down the road?
Jeremy
I'm in favor. I imagine the superbowl party at Bill's !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)
Eduardo
Absolutely. We definitely need to get all of our heads together. I think that as groups working separately and sometimes in isolation, we are spinning many of the same wheels in different mud holes.
Anyway, that is the impression I got at the STFM meeting in Denver last Spring when the OB folks came over and talked to us in the Proc/Hosp group.
Paul W. Davis
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