Contents tagged with texas academy of family physicians

  • Reducing the stigma around mental health

    Tags: anticipate joy, texas academy of family physicians

    Thursday, July 8, 2021 10:18:00 AM
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    By Anticipate Joy

    As physicians, you are used to constantly helping and providing for your patients. However, there is a sense of stigma around doctors taking care of themselves — particularly in mental health. Suffering from depression, burnout, and suicide occur in higher rates among medical professionals than almost any other profession. There is so much stigma around doctors getting mental health care, as if a person is less fit to fulfill their profession if they are seeking out help. We would never shame someone for seeking treatment for a physical disease, and it should not be any different for someone struggling mentally.

    Prejudice and stigma around mental illness will keep people from seeking out the help they need and deserve. Here is some advice for helping reduce stigma in your workplace.

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  • A scribe's story

    Tags: scribe story, Ben Saul, Harish Thoppe, Larry Kravitz, TAFP, Texas Academy of Family Physicians, pre-med, scribe

    Wednesday, June 23, 2021 4:07:00 PM
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    By Ben Saul, Harish Thoppe, and Larry Kravitz, MD

    It is hard to lay bare your personal medical practice to the eyes of another professional. As I have told every medical student on rotation with me, “You will learn from me how to practice medicine right, but you will also quietly learn how to practice medicine wrong, seeing things you will know you never want to repeat.” We are imperfect. When we are teaching medical students, we showcase our successes, but we relinquish any hope of hiding our professional flaws. You must make your own peace with that in order to teach. You must trust in the benevolence of students to see that you stepped up to the plate and volunteered to try to raise their medical skills.

    Medical students shadow and practice, practice and shadow. They come and go, usually for four short weeks within a family medicine rotation. But scribes come and stay; they are the ultimate shadows. Muted by the nature of their mission. Silent witness to the inner clinical sanctum. We take them on to share the exhausting intensity of our trusting patients with their challenging mortal illnesses and aging. A bond develops with your scribe, often unspoken, yet undeniably strong.

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  • New Braunfels family physician receives TMA’s Young at Heart Award

    Tags: Emily briggs, TMA Young at heart award, TAFP, Texas Academy of Family Physicians, new braunfels, young physician section

    Wednesday, June 23, 2021 3:52:00 PM
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    New Braunfels family physician Emily D. Briggs, MD, MPH is the 2021 Texas Medical Association Young at Heart Award recipient. Doctors from the TMA  Young Physician Section announced the award during TexMed, TMA’s annual meeting, held virtually.  

    The YPS, a group of TMA physicians under age 40 or in their first eight years of medical practice, chose Briggs for her dedication to engaging medical students, resident physicians, fellows, and young physicians in organized medicine.

    “I have never been so pleasantly acknowledged — and by a wonderful group of future leaders,” said Briggs, a TMA member for 17 years. 

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  • Awarding grants in the Heart of Texas

    Tags: chapter grant program, heart of texas chapter, TAFP, travis county chapter, Karen Smith, Katharina Hathaway, Jean Klewitz, Texas Academy of Family physicians

    Wednesday, June 23, 2021 3:42:00 PM
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    By Jean Klewitz

    The TAFP Heart of Texas Chapter started a chapter grant program in early 2020. Supported by family physicians, the grant program fuels local community work. Applicants to the grant program are chapter members supporting the local community or member-nominated community groups within the Heart of Texas’ 12 counties.

    Leaders of the chapter, Karen Smith, MD, chair, and Katharina Hathaway, MD, vice chair, met while doing some nonprofit work together through the Manor Community Wellness Alliance. Smith was working with others to start the Manor Free Clinic. Their meeting in humanitarian work helped fuel philanthropic community work within their chapter.

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  • President's Letter

    Tags: president's letter, amer shakil, family fun fest, TAFP, Texas Academy of Family Physicians

    Wednesday, June 23, 2021 11:15:00 AM
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    Keeping up the fight for family medicine through the pandemic

    By Amer Shakil, MD, MBA
    TAFP President

    Greetings members. What a strange year and a half its been for all of us. As life is slowly and cautiously beginning to return to something akin to normal, we should take a moment to acknowledge the struggles and the achievements we have experienced, both individually and as a specialty. Over these several months, the resilience of family physicians, our physician colleagues, other health care providers, and aides of all sorts has been nothing short of amazing.

    I have also marveled at the resilience of our Academy. In February of 2020, it seemed unimaginable that we would cancel April’s C. Frank Webber Lectureship and Interim Session. And then it became obvious that we couldn’t possibly hold the meeting. The Academy would go on to learn to produce virtual conferences, and that’s how we would conduct business for the rest of the year.

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