On August 2, the OAFP Foundation (Foundation) honored Scott Anzalone, MD, with its 2019 Family Physician Mentorship Award during the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians’ Family Medicine Celebration Academy Awards Dinner.
The Foundation would like to share the remarks given by Dr. Anzalone after receiving his award as they are an excellent reminder of the power practicing family physicians have on building a strong family medicine workforce in Ohio.
“One of my loves in life is to teach. Whether that is a patient about their disease process and how to manage it; educating a community organization, a medical student, or a resident; or lending my expertise on our local school board, I feel as a physician, especially a family medicine physician, it is our responsibility to educate our community. It is also all of our responsibilities to teach those coming up the ranks in medicine, giving back, and honoring those that did it for us.
It is a proven fact that learning by modeling, and teaching by providing continuity in an apprenticeship type atmosphere, results in a better physician. It provides a better sense of satisfaction for both the physician teacher and the students. I have enjoyed watching my students grow from the excited “deer in the head lights” first-year medical student, to the most competent member of our community of physicians.
Having a part in shaping and molding a young physician is an honor and a great responsibility that I have never taken lightly. For example, Kathleen Bertuna, who precepted with me and delivered her first baby, is now not only a great OB/GYN in our local community, but she takes care of my own family. And, another student, Joe Zell, is succeeding in his career choices and is currently excelling in a fellowship.
I make sure each of my students get hands-on experiences that challenge them to not just learn, regurgitate facts, and practice cookbook medicine, but teaches them to be critical thinkers. Learners become followers…thinkers become leaders. We can make that happen by allowing them to make decisions and take chances under our safety net.
In today’s insurance micromanaged, financially stressful environment, it has been more and more difficult to recruit mentors and preceptors. I often hear ‘it takes time and time is money.’ Hospital owned groups see productivity as primary, and teaching not worth losing it over, so it is discouraged.
As we see our specialty being swallowed up by midlevel providers, our patients being told that they are just as good and qualified as board certified family physicians are, that they are an equal “provider,” and as I watch the pendulum swing toward students choosing sub-specialties over primary care, it is even more important that each of us realize that if we don’t take these young minds and show them, not just tell them, that our specialty is vital, fulfilling, and income safe, then we are going to see our specialty decimated.
I have had students say, “I did not realize that family physicians can do what you do.” I tell them a good family physician can handle 90% of what walks through the office door. And, despite what they are being told, I tell them they can make a good living and pay off student debt as a family physician.
The specialty of family medicine is just that, a specialty allowing us to care for the entire family’s needs from cradle to grave. We are not just a referral source for subspecialists! At the university level, students are being told they are too smart to be family physicians and they will not make any money. What they should be told is that they are too smart to be a single focused subspecialist and that a good family physician can make a great living. It takes an incredible mind to grasp the entirety of our scope of practice.
It is vital that each of us do our part to teach the next generation of family physicians. If we don’t, the internet and the subspecialist will. We need good well-rounded, full-scope family medicine physicians in our communities especially in rural and urban underserved areas.
Take these young minds, grab them, and share with them the amazing world of our specialty. It is not all about productivity and clicking the insurance companies required boxes to make them a profit. Stop, take a student under your wing, and years from now these students and residents will be what you see as your successes in your career – not how much you generated or what your quality score was. Join me in raising the best family physicians our future needs.”
- Make a monetary investment in medical students with an online donation to the Foundation.
- Complete and return the preceptor volunteer form to participate in the 2020 Leroy A. Rodgers, MD, Preceptorship Program (a four-week rotation with a first-year medical student over the summer months).
- Join the Foundation Board of Trustees. The Foundation Governance Committee will be meeting this month to determine a slate of trustees with terms starting January 2020. If interested, please contact Director of Foundation and Strategic Programs Kaitlin McGuffie.
Thank you all for what you do every day! We appreciate you!
If you have any questions regarding Foundation programs, please contact Kaitlin or call the office at 800.742.7327.