Building the future of family medicine

By Kathy McCarthy
Executive Director, TAFP Foundation

This year the TAFP Foundation — the charitable arm of the Academy — has made significant steps to support educational and scientific initiatives of family medicine and to ensure a strong future for the specialty. Through research, travel funding and scholarships, the Foundation reaches out to the next generation of medical leaders to spread family medicine’s message and encourage the best and brightest to enter the practice.

Research: For more than 15 years, the Foundation has dedicated a part of its annual budget to practice-based research. Applicants must present topics to the TAFP Foundation Research Grants Committee and each idea is considered based on its relevance to family medicine, the quality of the study’s design, appropriateness of data analysis and the relationship between the cost and benefit to family medicine.

With such an open-ended opportunity, the study topics have varied greatly, from patient care and trends to those on social issues and physician training. One Foundation-supported study, “Integrating Complementary and Integrative Medicine into Primary Care,” appears on page 36 of this issue.

Scholarships: An important way the Foundation supports the specialty is through scholarships for family medicine students and residents. Since its creation in 1994, the scholarship program has awarded almost $100,000 to future family physicians.

Travel Funding: The TAFP Foundation provides travel funding for medical students and residents who desire exposure to family medicine at TAFP and AAFP meetings. More than 50 students received travel funding this year to attend state and national meetings. Nina Torkelson, M.D., a third-year medical student at UTHSC Houston at the time of the conference, expressed her gratitude for travel support to the 2006 C. Frank Webber Lectureship and Interim Session.

“Thanks for a wonderful conference and providing the financial means to make it,” said Torkelson, now a first-year resident in the Valley Baptist Medical Center Family Practice Residency Program. “The networking, learning and rejuvenation of spirit were just what I needed at the end of medical school to jump-start my energy for residency.”

Member support of the Foundation is crucial to its success. Because of the generous contributions of individual TAFP members, corporate partners and friends and the sale of all-occasion cards and Annual Session 2007 pins, the TAFP Foundation can continually develop and offer new scholarships, research opportunities and educational support. Two of new scholarships created this year will specifically benefit minority medical students. The Glen Johnson, M.D., Medical Student Scholarship will be awarded to an African American medical student and the Minority Medical Student Scholarship will be given to a third-year minority medical student once the initial $25,000 endowment is raised. The Foundation appreciates the generous donations from the family medicine community as we work together to improve the specialty.

2006 TAFP Foundation scholarship recipients

Travis Brown, M.D.
John Peter Smith Family Practice Residency Program
Arnold N. Krause, M.D. Medical Student Scholarship

Laura R. Byrne
Baylor College of Medicine
Harold T. Pruessner, M.D., Medical Student Scholarship

Daniel Clearfield
University of North Texas Health Science Center
Arnold N. Krause, M.D. Medical Student Scholarship

Heath Cotter
Texas Tech University Health Science Center
Norma Porres, M.D., and Felipe Porres, M.D. Medical Student Scholarship

Ashley Gallagher
UTMB Galveston
Weldon G. Kolb, M.D. Medical Student Scholarship

Carmen M. Herrera
UT Health Science Center at Houston
Harold T. Pruessner, M.D., Medical Student Scholarship

Reshma Lakhiani
Baylor College of Medicine
Valley Chapter Medical Student Scholarship

Regina K. Lee, M.D.
CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency Program
Leah Raye Mabry, M.D. Resident Scholarship

Peter Ruiz, M.D.
Valley Baptist Medical Center Family Practice Residency Program
Valley Chapter Medical Student Scholarship and the
S. Perry Post, M.D. Medical Student Scholarship

Linda Jo Saenz, M.D.
Valley Baptist Medical Center Family Practice Residency Program
Valley Chapter Medical Student Scholarship

Maribel Sanchez, M.D.
Valley Baptist Medical Center Family Practice Residency Program
Valley Chapter Medical Student Scholarship

Jeremiah Seely, M.D.
McLennan County Family Practice Residency Program
William F. Ross, M.D. Medical Student Scholarship

Kristen S. Walkinshaw
UTMB Galveston
Weldon G. Kolb, M.D. Medical Student Scholarship

Josephine Watson, M.D.
McLennan County Family Practice Residency Program
Weldon G. Kolb, M.D. Medical Student Scholarship