Family Medicine Rising: Building on Momentum Jay W. Lee, MD, MPH, FAAFP
From #FMRevolution to #FMRising
Family Medicine rising (#FMRising)? Yes, absolutely. Failure is not an option. The brokenness of today’s health care system needs our collective healing minds and hearts. The COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgency for systemic transformation unlike any period I’ve experienced in my career of 20-plus years. The pandemic has opened a historic window to rise up and become the leaders our health care system needs us to be. We will rise up: Family Medicine strong. In the spring of 2011 (what is it about spring and revolutions by the way?), then-AAFP President Roland Goertz, MD, delivered a simple, but powerful, message: “Our Time is now.” America’s family physicians seized the moment. How? By utilizing social media to do what we do best: communicate. Our vision was two-fold: 1) that family physicians and other primary care providers embrace this idea that we are better
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California Family Physician Summer 2022
than how the status quo values us, and that we need to “revolt” against the fragmented health care delivery machine to shift away from volume-based fee-for-service and toward value-based care; 2) that the general public engages with #FMRevolution-aries and embraces the movement. In the spring of 2011, Family Medicine Revolution was re-born as #FMRevolution. Our collective family medicine consciousness, like the mythical phoenix, arose from the ashes to become “Strong Medicine for America.” We have new tools for engaging strong warriors (or awakening long dormant ones) and for stoking the fire within our souls. Since the birth of #FMRevolution, we have witnessed a surge in activity on various social media platforms highlighting the importance of family physicians in America’s communities and making a strong case for re-engineering (let’s call it “physician-eering”) the foundation of our health care system with a robust, dynamic primary care workforce.
