Video and text:
Dr. Kenneth Lin, a family physician at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, discusses in Medscape the continuing challenges of getting new physicians to go into primary medicine.
He talks about the income gulf between primary care and procedural sub-specialists — a gap that huge education debts make more daunting for young physicians.
But he also quotes the Council of Academic Family Medicine observation that payment reform is only one of four ‘pillars’ of primary-care workforce reform. The other three, Dr. Lin says, are “the pipeline of medical school applicants, the process of medical education, and practice transformation.”
Dr. Lin complains: “Let’s face it: The financial incentive structure of most academic medical centers tends to devalue primary care training, meaning that family medicine educators like me need to work harder than others to ‘sell’ our specialty.”
He notes that the “Family Medicine for America’s Health leadership team recommended creating longitudinal, integrated curricula in family medicine that allow students to make meaningful contributions to patient-centered care teams and have plenty of opportunities for faculty mentorship.”
