NCFM Today

This is The Best News in North Carolina Family Medicine: the NCAFP meeting with state health plans to advocate for new primary care investment, the CMS physician payment reforms we need, our student summer programs, new rural health care funding for primary care clinics, and much more!

This is The Best News in North Carolina Family Medicine: the launch of Tailored Plans, the CMS physician payment reforms we need, and much more!

This is The Best News in North Carolina Family Medicine: congressional testimony against health care consolidation, registration for the 2024 Winter Family Physicians Weekend, a public health update on the status of avian influenza in NC, and much more!

Whenever we can, we make sure that our members hear about the most important news and resources in North Carolina Family Medicine. If they need to know it to help their patients, they’ll hear it from us. This is The Best News in North Carolina Family Medicine: increasing investment in NC primary care, new rules to improve Medicaid payments for family physicians, the new ABFM Certification cycle, and more!

In February, we hosted our annual Family Medicine Day. This event combines two of our favorite things: medical students, and unparalleled Family Medicine education. 87 medical students attended workshops hosted by North Carolina Family Medicine Residency faculty and residents, where they experienced the broad scope of medicine performed by family physicians each day. This learning helped medical students better understand our specialty, what they want for their future practice, and why Family Medicine is a crucial part of the healthcare landscape. 

All of this made Family Medicine Day the perfect time to ask a few students and residency leaders what they were enjoying most. We were glad to speak with Dr. Melissa Bray Brown, Dr. Jannalyn Beste, Dr. Sushma Kapoor, Evan Morgan, Melissa Jenkins Soares, Jacob Pascual, Eelya Sefat, and Zoe Greene.

Today, we’re glad to share these interviews about the parts of Family Medicine which North Carolina medical students like best!

At the end of 2023, we were lucky to host the Winter Family Physicians Weekend at the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville. One of the biggest items of that business at the winter meeting is the induction of the new NCAFP president. At the 2023 meeting, we were honored to induct Dr. Garett Franklin as our president and hear his induction speech, which described his journey to Family Medicine, his hard-earned lessons as a family physician, and his plans and hopes for the specialty's future.

Hear NCAFP President Dr. Garett Franklin speak at the 2023 Winter Family Physicians Weekend!

NCAFP Immediate Past President Dr. Shauna Guthrie delivered the "Year in Review" speech during the 2023 Winter Family Physicians Weekend. She looked back on her work and the Academy’s 2023 achievements with gratitude, insight, and encouragement. We’re glad to bring you that entire speech for today’s podcast episode!

In this episode, NCAFP Communications and Membership Manager Kevin LaTorre speaks with Dr. Maureen Murphy, Dr. Macy Osborn, and Dr. Beat Steiner about the professional and personal benefits of the mentorship that family physicians receive from one another.  These mentor-to-mentee relationships can provide instruction, support, and companionship that physicians of every age and stage need for their work and their health. Since our work at the Academy includes helping physicians sustain their patient care and wellbeing, we encourage and foster mentorship among our physician members as a key support for one another. The episode includes the lessons and rewards of mentorship for Family Medicine, as these family physicians practice and enjoy them.

In this episode, NCAFP EVP/CEO Greg Griggs and NCAFP General Counsel/Chief of Staff Shawn Parker discuss the 2023-24 North Carolina Budget including the many positives for family medicine specifically and primary care in general.  The discussion includes information about the passage of Medicaid Expansion; increased funding for health professional loan repayment, including a new program specifically for primary care; scholarships/forgivable loans for medical students who plan on serving in primary care or psychiatry in rural and underserved areas of NC; funding for dedicated teaching time at five rural team-based teaching hubs; a study of the need for more community-based clinical preceptors in our state; and a Primary Care Payment Reform Task Force that will look at how to measure primary care investment and ultimately increase investment in primary care in our state. Listen now and learn more about the outcomes from our long-term advocacy efforts.

 One of the greatest parts of our work at the Academy is connecting medical students with preceptors and mentors in an effort to best prepare them for life as a family physician. That process can take years and great support from our members, so we highly value and appreciate our members who are called to this role, and hope to open doors for more physicians to do so!

Preceptors are physicians who invite medical students and residents into their clinics, so that they can learn to practice directly from seeing a real workday. These preceptors give their time, talents, and mentorship for the good of these students. It's a gift you can’t understate. 

In today’s episode, you’ll hear about precepting directly from three preceptors: Dr. Elizabeth Ferruzzi, Dr. Landon Allen, and Dr. Sarah Asman Peiffer. They are all new physicians, who felt led to start precepting early in their careers.  Here are the lessons and rewards of precepting for Family Medicine, in these doctors’ own words!